A South African court has rejected an application by Zimbabwean parents seeking to have their children issued with South African birth certificates.
According to IOL, the Polokwane High Court dismissed the parents’ application, which sought to review and overturn a decision by the Department of Home Affairs to refuse to issue birth certificates to their three children.
The court affirmed that children born in South Africa to foreign national parents do not automatically qualify for South African citizenship, and therefore are not entitled to be issued with South African birth certificates.
The argument by the parents was that the department’s refusal was unlawful, unconstitutional and invalid.
The parents are Zimbabwean citizens currently staying in South Africa and have three children who were born between 2010 and 2016.
All their children were given unabridged certificates for non-citizens.
The parents had approached the department to apply for a South African birth certificate for each of the children as all the children were born in South Africa and didn’t have Zimbabwean citizenship or nationality.
They were told the only assistance they could get from the department was to be issued with unabridged birth certificates for non-South African citizens for their children to go to Zimbabwe so that the authorities there could issue them with Zimbabwean birth certificates.
The department said it was difficult to issue a South African birth certificate for citizenship where grounds for citizenship have not been established, as in this case, in terms of either birth or naturalisation.
Children born of permanent residents follow their parent’s status, the department said, adding the applicants were from Zimbabwe and had not renounced their citizenship.
Dual citizenship is prohibited in law and as such the applicant’s children are Zimbabwean citizens.
The department also said citizenship could not be conferred on children of permit holders for work approved for that purposes, or for study or holiday purposes.
The court said the basic principle of South African citizenship was that a child followed the citizenship or nationality of his or her parents.
If one parent was a South African citizen, the child would be a citizen by birth.
The court turned down the application and said it was best to register the children in Zimbabwe.
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