JOHANNESBURG - Justice Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi has set the record straight about Constitutional Court ruling on the processing of asylum applications.
She said the ruling from July 2026 does not grant refugee status or permanent residence automatically to anyone who enters South Africa, nor does it legalise unlawful migration.
Instead, it requires that individuals claiming asylum be allowed access to the asylum determination process so that their claims can be properly assessed in terms of the law, she said.
Kubayi was speaking on Thursday during a briefing by the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Migration on Thursday on how it's managing migration.
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The briefing comes following tensions at Refugee Reception Centres as staff processed new asylum applications. Anti-illegal immigration groups have blocked access to some of the centres.
"The decision of the Constitutional Court does not confer new rights to asylum seekers as many in the social media circles falsely claim," Kubayi said.
In that, she warned that if applications are fraudulent, unfounded, abusive or do not meet the requirements of the Refugees Act, they will be rejected through established legal processes.
In July, the apex court ruled that parts of the Refugee Act were unconstitutional and invalid.
It found that any person seeking asylum cannot be denied access to the system for failing to provide the required documents or to report to a refugee reception office within the stipulated five-day window.
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But the immediate challenge of this ruling, according to Kubayi, has been capacity.
“The IMC recognised and acknowledged that these directives, which were intended to comply with the Concourt judgment, may have led to the arrival of many foreign nationals to their offices of which Home Affairs did not have sufficient capacity to deal.”
These arrivals, according to Kubayi, placed ‘significant pressure on refugee processing facilities and administrative systems at Home Affairs.
In light of this, there are efforts being taken to address the immediate operational implications of the judgment.
This she said includes strengthening refugee processing capacity and improving identity verification and biometrics screening, accelerate adjudication of asylum applications and intensify efforts of identifying and acting against fraud and abuse within the system.