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MDC members escape deportation
27/06/2008 20:47 - (SA)
Pretoria - The Zimbabwe Exiles Forum (ZEF) has obtained an urgent Pretoria High Court order to stop the deportation of 33 Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters.
The Pretoria High Court on Friday ordered the Department of Home Affairs to issue the 33 with temporary asylum seeker papers in terms of the Refugees Act.
The papers identify the Zimbabweans as asylum seekers and will prevent them from being deported until the final determination of their asylum applications and any appeals.
The court also ordered the immediate release of 14 of the applicants, finding that they were being illegally detained at the Lindela holding facility in Krugersdorp.
The 14 were arrested after their asylum applications were turned down - a decision they wanted to appeal against. They were briefly released, but re-arrested while on their way to the gates of Lindela.
Jacob van Gardenen of Lawyers for Human Rights, which assisted the applicants, said the judgment was a victory for asylum seekers.
He said the organisation intended assisting their group with a further application to declare certain of Home Affairs? policies and practices with relation to asylum seekers unconstitutional and unlawful.
This included the practice to "release" but immediately re-arrest asylum seekers to circumvent legislation in terms of which foreigners could not be detained for purposes of deportation for longer than 30 days without a warrant.
The group was arrested during protest action outside the Chinese embassy in April.
The 33 applicants were among a group of Zimbabweans protesting against the deployment of a Chinese ship carrying arms to Zimbabwe.
They were taken to Lindela after their arrest, where they were allegedly forced to sign deportation notices.
The applicants maintained that it was unlawful to detain asylum seekers pending the final outcome of their applications. They also argued that the practice of "releasing" and re-arresting asylum seekers was unconstitutional and in effect sanctioned "indefinite detention" without judicial sanction.
Home Affairs contended that it had acted perfectly legally in terms of the latest court rulings and interpretation of the applicable legislation.
The department insisted that the applicants had in any event not exhausted all of their internal remedies, and could not come to court until they had done so.
- SAPA
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