Lawyers for Human Rights v Minister of Home Affairs [2017] ZACC 22

What was at stake

Immigration detention safeguards; judicial oversight

What happened

The applicant, Lawyers for Human Rights, brought a constitutional challenge on behalf of foreign nationals who had been detained under the Immigration Act 13 of 2002 for extended periods without appearing before a court or independent judicial officer. The detained individuals — undocumented migrants and asylum seekers — were held in immigration detention facilities, some for weeks or months, without any automatic judicial oversight of the lawfulness of their continued detention, relying solely on administrative decisions by immigration officials to extend detention beyond initial periods.

What the court decided

Sections authorising prolonged detention without prompt judicial review unconstitutional; strengthened safeguards for non-nationals.

How the court got there

The Constitutional Court held that the relevant provisions of the Immigration Act were inconsistent with section 35(2)(d) of the Constitution, which guarantees every detained person the right to have the lawfulness of detention decided by a court, and with section 12(1), which protects the right to freedom and security of the person. The Court reasoned that delegating continued detention decisions entirely to immigration officials — without requiring prompt appearance before an independent judicial officer — provided insufficient protection against arbitrary detention and failed to meet the constitutional standard of judicial oversight. The principle of constitutional proportionality required that any limitation on the right to liberty must be authorised by law of general application and be reasonable and justifiable, conditions the impugned provisions did not satisfy given the absence of timely judicial review.

Statutes and cases cited

Categories

Authoritative link