\n
Lawyers for Human Rights welcomes the judgement of the Pretoria High Court which will bring relief to millions of people in South Africa. In the past five years, LHR has assisted over 500 people with blocked IDs \u2013 with the majority being marginalised, black South Africans. None were aware of their blocked IDs until they attempted to access another service e.g. applying for passports or new IDs, renewing driver\u2019s licenses, opening bank accounts, or applying for social grants. None received prior notice of the Department of Home Affairs\u2019 intention to block their IDs or investigate their status, nor written reasons for the decision to block. Furthermore, none were given an opportunity to make representations before their ID was blocked, or before the finalisation of the investigation. ID blocking can result in statelessness as it effectively strips affected individuals of their citizenship and dignity.<\/p>\n
LHR intervened in the matter as the Second Applicant and represented over 100 clients whose IDs are currently blocked. LHR contended that DHA\u2019s ID blocking practice reflects a contempt for people, and a processes that undermines the sanctity of the Constitution. The DHA claimed that ID blocking is an \u201cadministrative tool\u201d used to maintain the accuracy and integrity of the National Population Register, but could point to no fair and legal administrative process for the use of this \u201ctool\u201d . The \u201cblock\u201d occurs when a marker is placed against an ID number, either indicating that it is tainted by an administrative or clerical error, or by suspected fraud or misrepresentation.<\/p>\n
The court highlighted that in blocking IDs in the manner it did, the DHA \u201cignored the jurisprudential value of ubuntu\u201d. The court ordered the DHA to put in place a just and fair process that is in line with the Constitution and the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act (PAJA). The court added that \u201cwhile the passive violation of human rights by a State that fails to take steps to promote and advance human rights is unacceptable in a constitutional dispensation, the active violation of human rights by a State that infringes constitutionally entrenched human rights violates public trust in the institution of the State and undermines the Constitution\u201d.<\/p>\n
Thandeka Chauke, head of the Statelessness Unit at LHR, said, \u201cWe are happy that we will see an end to this unjust practice and we hope that this judgement will be the first steps in restoring dignity to the thousands of people who have suffered.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read original: https:\/\/www.lhr.org.za\/lhr-news\/press-statement-home-affairs-practice-of-id-blocking-declared-unconstitutional\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Press Statement Judgment was handed down on Tuesday, 16 January 2024 by Judge Van der Schyff in the matter of Phindile Philile Mazibuko and Others v Minister of Home Affairs and Others. The Court confirmed that in the absence of a fair administrative process, and in the absence of any empowering provision for their conduct, […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","region-afrique-du-sud-2","type-articles-de-presse","item-year-695","item-theme-documents-d-identite-et-passeports","item-theme-discrimination-fr"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39930,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39929\/revisions\/39930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}