Deadline looms for city’s refugee office

THE CLOCK is ticking for the Department of Home Affairs Refugee Reception Office (RRO) in Cape Town.

This after a court ordered for it to be to be reopened and fully functional by March 31, 2018. Sonke Gender Justice decided to do a site visit yesterday where they demanded to meet with the management of the centre to find out whether or not they are prepared for the reopening.

Only one member of Sonke Gender Justice was allowed to meet with the management team, but the outcome of that meeting left more questions than answers.

“Essentially what the management team said was that she can’t really respond to any of our questions and she refered us to the legal entity and I get the sense that nothing is going on,” Marike Keller from Sonke Gender Justice said. After the Cape Town RRO was closed in 2012, the closure was challenged by the Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town and affected asylum seekers, represented by the Legal Resources Centre.

The case then went to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA), which found that the closure was unlawful due to the department’s failure to consult with the public in an open and honest manner.

The SCA ordered the department to consult with stakeholders and to subsequently make a fresh decision about the status of the Cape Town RRO.

In late 2013, the department held a consultation meeting and pushed for the Cape Town RRO to remain open.

The department made a new decision in 2014 to again close the Cape Town RRO.

This decision was again challenged in the courts by the Somali Association of SA and the Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town.

Last year, the SCA found the department’s decision to close the Cape Town RRO “substantively irrational and unlawful”, as the department had ignored relevant facts, had failed to consider alternative premises and made the decision to close for ulterior purposes. As a part of its judgment, the SCA also ordered the department to provide progress reports regarding the reopening. According to Sonke Gender Justice, they have not received this.

“We are not happy with this response because we need to tell people what is happening and we don’t know what is happening,” Patrick Matenga from Unifam said.

Keller said that there seems to be a lack of communication because they have not been giving those progress reports. The department did not respond to the Cape Argus query at the time of going to print.