Hon Deputy Chairperson, hon members of the House and hon Deputy Minister Fatima Chohan, in contextualising the Refugees Amendment Bill, it needs to be stated that globalisation has created new realities and new challenges for nation states throughout the African continent and the world. Globalisation has created greater movements of goods and services, and people are today crossing borders under vastly different circumstances and with vastly different interests than before.
Some of the movements of people are motivated by business interests and economic development, and they are referred to internationally as economic migrants. Critically, in Africa, civil wars - often stoked by international economic interests - have resulted in a vast number of people being displaced from their countries of birth and fleeing across borders to other countries as foreign nationals. It is this displacement and economic migration that the Refugees Amendment Bill has to speak to.
South Africa as a major economic and political power is a signatory to various international legal instruments, principles and standards which relate to the status and care of refugees. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations, and the Organisation of African Unity's, OAU, conventions and protocol relating to the status of refugees, together with the globally applied UN Convention of 1991 on the recognition and treatment of displaced people as refugees, all placed obligations on the Republic of South Africa to carry out its obligations in terms of these agreements.
Today South Africa is the country that is most under pressure in dealing with the realities of being a country in Africa with internal human displacements and responsibilities to respond to. The government, noting the increasing challenges of refugees, responded to the policy challenges which called for better management, control, support and care of refugees.
However, it also had to deal with syndicates and organised crime that have used situations of conflict and economic migration to benefit themselves economically. Draft policy recommendations call for legislation to be revised to allow for stringent screening processes to prevent fugitives from other countries from entering the country as refugees. In this context, it was noted that the principal Act had loopholes which would lead to problems.
Therefore, the crafting of the amending Bill had to speak to the objectives of improving the capacity, effectiveness and efficiency of the status determination system of the Department of Home Affairs; correct the technical errors contained in the 2008 Amendment Act; make provision for the establishment of the status determination committee, which introduced the collective approach for decision-making; and make provision for the establishment of the Refugees Appeal Authority.
In the amending Bill Clause 8 amends section 24B of the principal Act in order to separate applications that are rejected as manifestly unfounded, abusive or fraudulent from being dealt with in the same procedure as applications rejected as unfounded applications. The effect of the amendment will be that an applicant whose application has been rejected as manifestly unfounded, abusive or fraudulent, cannot lodge an appeal with the Refugee Appeals Authority. Such a rejection will be reviewed by the Director-General.
The Bill furthermore:
... deletes subsection 3(a), which provides that the Refugee Appeals Authority may invite a United Nations High Commission on Refugees representative to make oral or written representations before the Refugee Appeals Authority makes a decision.
These amendments seek to broadly manage the movements of people. Some people present themselves as asylum seekers whilst they are, in fact, economic migrants. Our refugee application sheet system has been characterised by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, as one of the most generous systems in the world.
For example, with regard to asylum seekers and refugees, as well as acceding to international conventions, South Africa adopted domestic legal instruments to manage asylum seekers and refugees. Among others, these were that refugees cannot be prosecuted on account of their illegal entry or presence in South Africa, provided that they present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.
Refugees are not expelled from South Africa except on grounds of national security or public order. They are to be afforded basic security rights, protection from the abuse of state powers such as wrongful arrest and detention, and protection against physical attack, just to mention a few.
International law and other instruments impose obligations on the Southern African Development Community, SADC, to ensure that their countries are politically stable and developed economically. Furthermore, nationals of the SADC states are both identifiable and have proper travel documents so that they can be protected when they travel to their countries of destination.
There are more than 100 000 applicants currently applying for asylum. Part of this challenge is the high number of applicants who apply for asylum but are, in fact, economic migrants. In most of these cases, they know that they do not qualify for refugee status under the principal Act, but still apply and then lodge an appeal if turned down. It is this process that has led to huge backlogs.
Southern Africa faces a complex international migration phenomenon. Since 1994, South Africa has experienced an increase in the mixed flow of migrants.
This Bill also takes place in the context of the prevalence of international cross-border crimes, human trafficking and people running away from prosecution in their countries of birth. The nature of these crimes is serious, which warrants their being treated in proportion to the degree of gravity of the crimes.
The Bill is specific on what constitutes serious crimes. For example, section 4 of the principal Act has been amended by the insertion that:
... a crime which is not of a political nature and which, if committed in the Republic, would be punishable by imprisonment.
That is, without the option of a fine.
The Bill also extends the condition for refusal and revocation of asylum for crimes committed outside the Republic before application for asylum. Our good governance must ensure that we do not become an entry point for criminal activities that destabilise our country, region and the continent.
In passing this amending Bill, we need to strengthen the capacity of the SA Police Service, SAPS, to deal with cases of refugees and asylum seekers pertaining to rights and obligations. We must ensure that we sustain training of SAPS and judicial officers on issues of asylum seekers and refugees.
In conclusion, this amending Bill requires resources, such as human, financial and the appropriate systems, to be in place for its implementation, and training of the officials of the Department of Home Affairs. The amending Bill has to ensure that there is a balance between the developmental path of the country and the security of the state, whilst protecting the rights of refugees and asylum seekers within the ambit of our Constitution and international law.
As the Select Committee on Social Services, we support the amending Bill with the following amendments: in clause 4, the insertion of the following wording:
An appeal contemplated is subsection 1(a) must be determined by a single member or such number of members of the Refugee Appeals Authority as the chairperson may deem necessary, provided that at least one such member is legally qualified.
In clause 6, there is the insertion of "or any of its subcommittees".
In clause 8, again there is the insertion of "or any of its subcommittees".
With these amendments, the select committee recommends adoption of the Refugees Amendment Bill. I thank you, Deputy Chairperson.
Debate concluded.