Response – 30th May 2023 – A “Pathetic Dereliction of Duty” by Peter-John Pearson

On 25th May this year, the Department of Home Affairs approached the Constitutional Court to request a ‘revival of the order’ that the Court had issued in 2017 and which expired in June 2019. In 2017 the court ordered the DHA to amend aspects of the Immigration Act dealing, firstly, with detention of undocumented foreigners beyond the maximum of 120 days, while awaiting deportation; and, secondly, with the wide, almost unfettered powers of immigration officials to arrest and deport undocumented foreigners without judicial oversight and without any objectively determinable conditions to guide their decisions. The impugned sections also did not lay down any guidance for the exercise of this power.

Response – A Pathetic Dereliction of Duty by Peter-John Pearson