SA govt set to review immigrants' rights

THE SOUTH AFRICA government is reported to have instituted a "review" of the minimum rights to which immigrants are entitled. This will affect most of the Zimbabwean immigrants that are currently in South Africa. Zimbabwe has the highest number of immigrants in South Africa and some 3 million Zimbabweans are said to be in South Africa.

Briefing reporters on the cabinet's decisions, SA government spokesman Jimmy Manyi said among the rights under review were the right to work and study in South Africa.

Manyi would not say whether the government wanted to change immigration laws to remove these rights.

He said a review was "not a euphemism for downgrading or whatever", but the department of Home Affairs said it would release more details of the review soon.

Legal Resources Centre attorney William Kerfoot warned that any move by the government to revoke the rights of asylum seekers to work or study would contravene a 2004 Supreme Court of Appeal ruling, which said that barring asylum seekers from working or studying was unlawful based on the constitutional right to dignity.

Salim Vally of the University of Johannesburg's Centre for Education Rights said it would "fly in the face of international treaties and conventions that guarantee the right to education".

Also up for "assessment" by the SA government is whether that country's judicial system has transformed over the years. The government, Manyi said, would hire a research institution to probe how Constitutional Court rulings had influenced "socioeconomic transformation".

This follows recent comments by President Jacob Zuma that the judiciary should refrain from interfering in the government's policies and legislation passed by Parliament.

The ANC's Gwede Mantashe recently told Sowetan that some judges had positioned themselves as an opposition to the ruling party.