Home Affairs has two tests for asylum, and the doors are open again
A Constitutional Court judgment has reopened asylum applications, and eNCA has set out the two grounds on which a claim can succeed.
South Africa’s asylum doors have reopened after a Constitutional Court judgment, and eNCA has set out what the law actually asks of a person claiming refugee or asylum seeker status.
There are two grounds for a claim. An applicant must be fleeing external violence in their country of origin, which covers war and comparable conflict, or fleeing persecution. Persecution can rest on religion, sex, gender or sexual orientation, among other things.
Those two grounds are the gateway. They are not the whole test.
Home Affairs also weighs factors outside the applicant’s own account when it assesses a claim. Each application is considered on its specific facts. The department looks at the credibility of each applicant. It also looks at the actual conditions in the applicant’s country of origin, which means checking what bodies such as the United Nations say about that country and not only what the applicant says.
That is why the process is not a matter of submitting a form and collecting papers. External sources and country information form part of the assessment, alongside the applicant’s own claim.
The reopening follows the Constitutional Court judgment, which restored access to the application process.
Source: eNCA (YouTube), Asylum doors reopen after Constitutional Court judgment
