CAPE TOWN, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) -- The National Assembly of South Africa has approved the Immigration Amendment Bill, seeking to plug loopholes in existing law and reinforce protections for individual rights.
"The National Assembly at its plenary sitting today, passed the Immigration Amendment Bill," which was introduced in parliament on April 5, 2024, by the minister of home affairs, said a statement issued by the parliament late Thursday.
The amendment bill aims to amend South Africa's current Immigration Act to align it with the Constitution by closing various loopholes and strengthening protections against unfair detention, particularly for vulnerable women and children.
According to the statement, the bill came after a Constitutional Court order in 2017 found that certain sections of the Act were inconsistent with the Constitution.
"Among other things, the Constitutional Court ruled that section 34(1)(b) of the Immigration Act was unconstitutional, since it did not require an automatic judicial review of a detention before 30 calendar days expire," said the statement.
In a supplementary judgment delivered on Oct. 30, 2023, the Constitutional Court ordered that undocumented immigrants may only be detained if it is in the interests of justice and that detainees must be brought before a court within 48 hours, it added.
The newly passed amendment bill requires that someone detained under the Immigration Act appear before a court within 48 hours and not be held for more than 30 days. Meanwhile, children will no longer simply be processed as "illegal immigrants," but must be referred to child protection services, with detention only as a last resort.
According to the statement, the bill will now be sent to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), the upper house of parliament, for concurrence. Once passed in the NCOP, it will head to the desk of the president to be signed into law.
"The new standards in the bill give greater predictability to the deportation process," said Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber at the National Assembly sitting on Thursday, describing the bill as a "moral recalibration" of immigration policy.
"In addition to upholding the rights of the detained, the introduction of this heightened level of objectivity makes it much harder for any immigration officer to arbitrarily release detainees before they are deported," he said.
Schreiber also noted that the bill would pave the way for new regulations he plans to introduce for swifter deportation.
"In time, this will make for a stronger immigration enforcement system that reduces legal claims against the department while enhancing our ability to carry out legally compliant deportations more effectively," he added. ■
