South Africa COVID-19 RESOURCES
We track South Africa's legislation, regulations, gazettes, circulars and other legal and regulatory resources relating to the Coronavirus pandemic
We track South Africa's legislation, regulations, gazettes, circulars and other legal and regulatory resources relating to the Coronavirus pandemic
For many reasons, South Africa is not an easy place to seek asylum, and new research by human rights lawyer Jacob van Garderen highlights some of the difficulties faced by asylum seekers as well as other migrants. Among the worst issues he found were ongoing problems over access to safe housing, difficulties around documentation because of a government system that doesn’t appear to be working – and the ever present threat of xenophobia.
Evidence points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs (DHA) is not managing to process asylum seeker claims, according to interviews and research by South African human rights lawyer, Jacob van Garderen.
He said that one of the results of the failure by DHA to carry out this critical function was that asylum seekers could not be properly documented and this affected every aspect of their lives.
For many judges it will come as a relief to hear some good news for once, in the form of largely positive public perception about the judiciary and its role in society. The good news emerges from a just-published report on the state of the judiciary in Malawi, Namibia and South Africa. Every member of the bench in those three countries will be only too well aware of the short-comings of their own judicial system, exacerbated by the restrictions imposed by the Covid pandemic, among a number of other problems.
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One of the key issues on the minds of everyone concerned about justice in the three countries examined by the new report, Malawi, Namibia and South Africa, is the extent of corruption, perceived or real, in the legal system, the courts and the judiciary.
