Prof Wessel le Roux & Dr Roni Amit with an attendee from the lecture |
On 10 June 2010, the first event of the recently launched Migration & Citizenship Rights Network (MiCRiNet), one of Unisa’s strategic projects, took place in the Cas van Vuuren building. For MiCRiNet, the discussion hour was the first step in the aim of establishing a sustainable network of scholars and policy makers investigating the impact of migration on citizenship rights in the SADC region.
Dr Roni Amit, from Wits University, pointed out that although based on the number of applications, South Africa is worldwide the leading country for asylum seekers, with approximately 90 percent rejections, South Africa has fewer recognised refugees than other, poorer countries in sub-Saharan Africa. While South Africa’s theoretical approach and legal framework regarding the problem of refugees is very progressive, because South Africa relies on urban integration rather than refugee camps or mandatory detention, administrative difficulties severely hinder this theoretically progressive theoretical approach to be successfully applied in practice.
Dr Amit reviewed several cases in which asylum seekers were rejected and she concluded from the evidence she also presented in her introduction that none of those reviewed decisions complied with the Constitutional guarantee of administrative justice, none of the decisions properly implemented the law, and none of the decisions would stand up to legal scrutiny in a court of law.
A lively discussion followed this very interesting and insightful introduction. Staff members and guests took the opportunity to express their views and their concerns regarding the situation of refugees in South Africa, and provided the audience with further encouragement to reflect on the topic from both a humanitarian and legal point of view. One of the focal points of the audience’s contribution was the issue of xenophobia and its implications for society. Towards the end, it was recommended that the challenges and chances of migration in South Africa should be approached with an open mind by legislators and researchers alike.
MiCRiNet would like to thank all participants, especially the guest speaker, Dr Amit, for their contribution to make this first event a success and is looking forward to hosting many events of similar and different form in the future. |
