Pretoria High Court Dismisses ZEP Permit Application
The Pretoria High Court on Tuesday, 07 November dismissed an urgent application brought by the Helen Suzman Foundation (HSF) to protect the rights of Zimbabwean Exemption Permit (ZEP) holders, reported GroundUp.
Judges Colleen Collis, Gcina Malindi and Mandlenkosi Motha ruled that the application was not needed and confirmed the validity of the ZEPs and protections afforded to permit holders until at least June 2024.
A ruling by the judges in June this year gave 178 000 ZEP holders protection for 12 months while the Minister of Home Affairs, Aaron Motsoaledi, conducted a fair and rational inquiry into the impact of any termination of the programme.
The court affirmed that the ruling remained operative in spite of attempts by the minister to appeal it.
However, the court said the Minister’s powers to cancel the ZEP programme had not been usurped but set aside temporarily.
The judges said that HSF and its co-applicant, the Consortium for Refugee and Migrants in South Africa (CORMSA), were asking in their urgent application for “what they already have by operation of law”.
HSF sought an “enforcement order” after the Minister indicated that he intended to appeal the June ruling by petitioning the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) after he failed to get leave to appeal from the Pretoria court.
HSF was concerned that this meant the judgment would be automatically suspended thereby putting ZEP holders at risk of deportation while the appeal process played out with the permits set to expire in December 2023.
The HSF filed the urgent court action after the minister twice refused to abide by the court’s ruling pending appeal.
The three judges said their June judgment was not a final order and its aim was to preserve the status quo.
The judges declined to grant a declarator, that the ZEP programme remains intact until all appeals are exhausted, saying “There is no need for a duplication of this protection”.
In response to the ruling, HSF said it welcomed the court’s confirmation of the validity of the ZEPs and protections afforded to permit holders until at least June 2024.
However, the Minister of Home Affairs saw the ruling differently. He said:
In essence, HSF and CORMSA sought the judgment whereby the court will issue an order to compel the department to implement the adverse judgment regardless of any subsequent appeal by the minister in any court.
This judgment must serve as a wake-up call to the affected Zimbabwean nationals to follow the procedures outlined by the minister to regularise their stay in the Republic and forget about false promises.
More: Pindula News
