Home Affairs rebukes 'disinformation campaign' over ConCourt asylum ruling

The Department of Affairs is pushing back against what it calls a coordinated disinformation campaign over a Constitutional Court judgment on the processing of asylum applications.

The department said false claims are circulating that Minister of Affairs Leon Schreiber or the department decided to suspend so-called ‘good cause’ interviews for asylum seekers.

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It said the change was not a political decision, but the direct consequence of a binding Constitutional Court judgment handed down in July.

The dispute centres on the Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town’s challenge to parts of the Refugees Act.

The Constitutional Court confirmed that sections of the law were unconstitutional and invalid, including provisions that could prevent an asylum seeker from having their application considered on its merits because of how they entered or remained in South Africa.

At the centre of the case was the ‘good cause’ interview - a process used to determine whether someone who did not have the required documentation could proceed with an asylum application.

The court found that these requirements could create an unjustified barrier to the asylum system and undermine the principle of non-refoulement, which protects people from being returned to a country where they may face persecution or serious harm.

The judgment does not, however, give asylum seekers automatic refugee status, and it does not grant citizenship or blanketly legalise foreign nationals.

Instead, it means that a person cannot simply be blocked from having an asylum claim considered on the merits because of these procedural barriers.

Affairs said it opposed the litigation but is constitutionally obliged to implement the court’s binding order.

The department said it has, therefore, issued an operational directive to give effect to the judgment and not because of a decision taken by the minister or a political party.

The department is now referring what it describes as the disinformation campaign to the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) under its new Code of Conduct on Countering Disinformation ahead of the local government elections.

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