<\/p>\n
The Progressive Forces of SA (PFSA) and United Civic Movement raised concerns about applications from people who entered SA without legal documentation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Constitutional Court ruled that administrative or procedural barriers could not prevent asylum seekers from having applications assessed on their merits.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
PFSA President Mthetho Ngcukaitobi questioned whether the Department of Home Affairs had adequate capacity to implement a proposed online application system without creating opportunities for fraud.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ngcukaitobi said applicants would reportedly need registered South African mobile numbers to receive one-time passwords during the online process. \u201cHow do you obtain such a SIM card while you are not legal in the country?\u201d Ngcukaitobi said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ngcukaitobi expressed concern that applications could be submitted or manipulated from outside SA before applicants entered the country.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
PFSA also questioned what had happened to more than 1 million asylum applications Ngcukaitobi claimed had been rejected around 2015.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The interviewer challenged the accuracy of the figure, noting that publicly discussed statistics concerned a global backlog of applications rather than more than 1 million rejections in SA.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ngcukaitobi maintained that PFSA had supporting information and undertook to provide the relevant statistics. \u201cWe are still looking for those numbers to say, where did they disappear?\u201d Ngcukaitobi said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
PFSA argued that Home Affairs should strengthen identity verification, require applicants to appear at designated offices and retain effective border and immigration controls while processing legitimate asylum claims.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ngcukaitobi also questioned why Home Affairs had not sought relief within the period following the judgment.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The government has indicated that the Justice and Home Affairs Departments are considering returning to the Constitutional Court to seek more time to manage administrative challenges arising from the order.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
PFSA called for immigration reforms to incorporate proposals submitted during public consultation on the government\u2019s White Paper.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Those proposals included the first-safe-country principle, under which asylum seekers may be required to apply for protection in the first safe country reached after leaving the country of origin.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
PFSA said safeguards should protect genuine asylum seekers while preventing fraudulent applications and abuse of the system.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":44630,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-47957","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Two South African (SA) civic organisations have protested outside Home Affairs offices in Pretoria over a Constitutional Court ruling requiring SA to reopen the asylum system to new applicants.","published_date":"","news_description":"Two South African (SA) civic organisations have protested outside Home Affairs offices in Pretoria over a Constitutional Court ruling requiring SA to reopen the asylum system to new applicants.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/47957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/47957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47959,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/47957\/revisions\/47959"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=47957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}