Chairperson, there is one change to the Refugees Act which we do welcome, albeit with some qualification. Asylum seekers are currently interviewed by one person, the Refugee Status Determination Officer. The system is not only open to corruption; it has been riddled with extremely poor decision-making. The Bill now proposes that the Status Determination Committee will interview applicants and make decisions on granting asylum or otherwise. The system should indeed be fairer to asylumseekers and should result in decisions that are not, as is currently the case, the target of litigation based on infringement of the human rights of asylumseekers.
The 2009 Wits University study provides the following alarming statistics on asylum-seeker applications: Eighty-five per cent of asylumseekers were unhappy with the interpretation service provided; 49% had not understood the reason for the interview; and 22% of applicants reported hostility during their interviews, with questions such as the following being asked: "What's wrong with you people? Why don't you go somewhere else?" The study also found that Refugee Status Determination Officers regularly ignored information and claims, included their own speculation and decisions, made mistakes of fact with respect to country information, and made excessive use of cut-and-paste decisions. Now committees which comprise individuals without skill, understanding or expertise cannot perform more effectively than those individuals. So, properly equipping her officials is an issue that the Minister must address.
This Bill cannot be seen in isolation; it must be read together with the Refugees Amendment Act of 2008, which will come into force concurrently with this Bill. This Bill will, in fact, supplement provisions of the 2008 Act.
A standing committee is currently in place to provide independent oversight of the operations of refugee reception centres. An independent, efficient and competent review of applications which are found to be manifestly unfounded would then mean that the asylumseeker could be illegal and face deportation. The 2008 Act scraps the standing committee entirely. It requires the director-general to review all such applications. The decision of the director-general is final - no right of appeal exists.
The department has stated that asylumseekers have the right to seek judicial review of decisions, and that this section is therefore not in conflict with the principles of natural justice. We disagree. In 2009 alone, 20 High Court cases, brought by Lawyers for Human Rights, secured the release of over 5 000 non-nationals. Their detention was based primarily on poor decision-making by departmental officials. Why are we now accepting new law that will simply increase the potential for costly litigation against the department, based on human rights infringements?
We know that the standing committee's functioning has been far from optimal. However this can and must be corrected. What the amendment achieves is actually to remove any semblance of independent oversight of the operations at refugee reception centres.
A refugee can only apply for permanent residence if he or she has lived in the country for an uninterrupted period of five years after having been declared an indefinite refugee by the Minister. Currently, being declared an indefinite refugee is taking up to nine years. So refugees will have to be in this country for up to 14 years before being allowed to even apply for permanent residence, all the while living with the threat of the Minister lifting their refugee status.
The DA agrees with the many submissions demanding that the period of residence required to apply for permanent residence should be calculated from the time the refugee first applied for asylum seeker status. It should not be from the time the indefinite refugee status is granted. This Bill must also be considered in parallel with the Immigration Amendment Bill, which is currently before Parliament. The Immigration Amendment Bill includes the prescreening of asylumseekers at border posts. This appears to be contradictory to the provisions of the Bill before us today. It is certainly contradictory to the requirements of the Refugees Act, and to the United Nations Convention and Protocol on the Status of Refugees to which we are a signatory.
There was talk during deliberations on the Immigration Amendment Bill of rejecting asylumseekers on the basis that South Africa is not the first safe country they have reached. There is no Southern African Development Community, SADC, and African Union, AU, agreement on this. It is contrary to the Refugees Act and to the United Nations Convention.
The Immigration Amendment Bill requires an asylumseeker to travel from a port of entry to the nearest refugee reception office.