The centre was the applicant in the case which took aim at sections of the Act, which provided that an asylum seeker was automatically deemed to have abandoned their asylum application if they did not renew their visa within one month of its expiry. 

In the unanimous ruling handed down on Tuesday, the Constitutional Court categorised refugees as an `especially vulnerable group`, adding that `their plight calls for compassion`. 

JOHANNESBURG - The Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town has welcomed a Constitutional Court ruling setting aside sections of the Refugees Act stating that it’s going to make a marked difference in the lives of those fleeing persecution.

The centre was the applicant in the case which took aim at sections of Act, which provided that an asylum seeker was automatically deemed to have abandoned their asylum application if they did not renew their visa within one month of its expiry.

In February, the Western Cape High Court ruled in Scalabrini’s favour, and on Tuesday, so too did the Constitutional Court.

The centre’s head of advocacy and legal advisor James Chapman said: `It’s going to be very, very impactful, very meaningful, because in 2020 when the amendment came out, it meant an asylum seeker who had been struggling with the backlogs and challenges of accessing asylum was routinely cut out of the asylum process, and subjected to arrest, detention, deportation and being returned to a persecutory environment`. 

`So, now they have the solace, they have the protection that they`re not going to face being returned to their country where they wouldn`t be safe, where their life, liberty, fundamental human rights would be at risk,` he added.

LANDMARK JUDGEMENT

In the unanimous ruling handed down on Tuesday, the Constitutional Court categorised refugees as an “especially vulnerable group”, adding that “their plight calls for compassion”.

And it found the sections in question were “directly at odds” with this approach, as well as with the principle of ‘non-refoulement’, which provides that refugees or asylum seekers should not be made to go back to a country where they’re liable to be subjected to persecution.

It also found these sections “fly in the face” of the Refugees Act’s own provisions barring the return of individuals to countries where they’re under threat, as well as that they “infringe the right to dignity, unjustifiably limit the rights of children and are irrational and arbitrary”.

The Department of Home Affairs was ordered to pay costs in the matter.