Home Affairs aims to fend off litigation

Legally qualified people hired for posts in immigration offices

IN AN effort to ward off a high volume of litigation, the Department of Home Affairs has embarked on a process to hire legally qualified people to be posted at its civic services and immigration affairs directorates. “The capacity of the department has been strengthened. We recently created posts for the core business in immigration and civic to have a legal person to deal with any matter relating to ligation,” deputy director-general for civic services, Vusumuzi Mkhize, said yesterday.

“The posts have been advertised and we hope those people will monitor matters related to litigation on the core business.”

Mkhize made the comments following the closure of the department’s offices in Mbombela, Mpumalanga, after the sheriff of the court attached its goods in May. A foreign national took the department to court for wrongful arrest and was granted a default judgment of R150 000, which the department is now seeking to rescind.

According to deputy director-general for institutional planning and support, Thulani Mavuso, the department was slapped with about 50 litigations every week.

“On a weekly basis we have to respond and instruct state attorneys to defend matters. Some of them are opportunistic litigations,” Mavuso said.

He cited the example of some people who flew into OR Tambo International Airport, where they were awaited by lawyers who take the department to court in order to allow them entry into the country.

“It is quite bad in a sense that those opportunistic litigations, actually in the area of immigration, are quite huge.”

Mavuso said the same applies when people are arrested for fraudulent documents, or documents that are invalid, and taken to Lindela (repatriation Centre) in Krugersdorp.

“You have lawyers who make Lindela a hunting ground for those cases,” he said.

He said the high volume of litigation was creating huge administrative issues in the department.

“When you scan through those (cases), the majority are issues that are opportunistic rather than real issues that we are supposed to be defending.

“People use the law to say these are their constitutional rights and we need to defend the cases. Sometimes we defend things that are actually a waste of money but, because the matter has been brought against the department, we can’t fold our hands and not defend it.”

Mavuso also said his department was trying its best to ensure it sticks to turnaround time whenever processed applications are made by people, to avoid litigation.

It was previously reported that the department wasted millions of rands in taxpayers’ money as a result of unnecessary court battles. In a parliamentary question, the department said it spent R46.3 million on legal costs in 2011/2012 while R21.3m was spent in the prior financial year.

In 2014, out of 404 judgments granted by courts, 385 were made against detentions of illegal foreigners at Lindela Repatriation Centre, or failed asylum seekers who filed judicial reviews against such rejections.

OPPORTUNISTIC LITIGATIONS IN THE AREA OF IMMIGRATION ARE QUITE HUGE