South Africa's asylum system has reopened to all new applicants after a Home Affairs circular dated September 28 implemented a Constitutional Court judgment striking down parts of the Refugees Act that had barred most new asylum applications since 2020.
Refugee reception offices, including the office in Gqeberha, are now accepting new asylum applicants again. The Constitutional Court's July 7 ruling found the amendments that shut the door on new applicants to be unconstitutional.
Lawyers estimate that “hundreds of thousands” of people were affected by the six-year exclusion, many of them left in legal limbo without documentation. Advocacy groups have welcomed the reopening, while calling on Home Affairs to clear the massive backlog of applications that built up during the closure.
