Update, October 13: South Africa’s government has set out a proposed replacement process for asylum intake. At an October 11 briefing in Pretoria, the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Migration said Home Affairs aims to introduce an intention-registration and appointment system by November 10. This supersedes our earlier statement that no timetable had been announced; the target date is not proof that the platform is already operating.
A planned system, not an operating portal
Applicants would register their intention online and receive an appointment at a Refugee Reception Office. The announcement includes assisted registration at reception offices and support, on request, for people in police or immigration detention. Those access routes matter for people without devices or documents. Officials still need to publish the practical launch instructions and confirm that the promised assistance is available.
The proposed receipt would document an intention to claim asylum, personal and biometric details, a reference number and an appointment. It would not be a section 22 visa or recognition of refugee status. Government says valid receipt holders awaiting their first claim’s lodging and final determination should not be removed or detained solely for lacking a visa. The legal protection against return to persecution or serious harm is distinct from approval of a claim.
Who the receipt would protect
The committee distinguishes first applications from claims that have been finally rejected. Merely declaring a fresh intention would not restart protection after final rejection. A specific, genuinely new claim that removal would expose someone to persecution or serious harm should, however, be referred for legal advice. The proposed system also includes confidentiality safeguards, service standards and a complaints route.
Government intends to request court supervision and guidance, including time to develop capacity. No granted suspension order was announced in the cited briefing: government expressly acknowledges that it remains legally bound to comply with the existing judgment. A separate Gauteng High Court hearing is scheduled for October 29 to consider conflicting decisions relevant to implementation. The withdrawal and parliamentary response below remain dated background to this new plan.
Dated background: the October 9 withdrawal
South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs withdrew a directive governing the intake of asylum-seeker applications on Friday, October 9. Director-General Livhuwani Makhode said the instruction had overwhelmed Refugee Reception Offices within days and created serious risks to officials, public safety and order. The reversal is confirmed; it does not resolve the underlying legal duty that prompted the directive.
The withdrawn instruction was issued on September 28 to Refugee Reception Offices as an operational response to a Constitutional Court judgment delivered on July 7. Home Affairs said it was circulated without the knowledge of the minister or the political office and rejected claims that it was politically motivated. That is the department’s account of its internal process, not an independent finding about how the directive was approved.
What the court decided
The July ruling in Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town and Another v Minister of Home Affairs and Others remains binding. In a unanimous judgment, the Constitutional Court confirmed that provisions of the Refugees Act barring access because of procedural non-compliance were unconstitutional. The case concerned obstacles linked to immigration status, manner of entry, failure to report within the prescribed period and lack of an asylum transit visa.
The court’s decision requires claims to be considered on their merits rather than rejected solely for those procedural reasons. It does not grant automatic refugee status, citizenship, permanent residence or voting rights to an applicant. A person must still establish eligibility under the law, and an unsuccessful claim can still lead to removal after the required legal process. Withdrawing an administrative instruction cannot overturn the court’s judgment.
Home Affairs said immediate implementation produced consequences it had not anticipated. According to the department, all five Refugee Reception Offices were overwhelmed within days, officials faced heightened risk and the situation posed serious threats to public safety and order. The statement did not publish office-by-office intake figures, so the scale of the surge cannot yet be independently quantified from the announcement.
At the time of the October 9 withdrawal, the department said a fresh process would determine an operationally appropriate and sustainable way to comply with the judgment. It reaffirmed respect for the judiciary and the rule of law. The subsequent November 10 target adds a timetable; confirmation of an operating replacement system is still pending.
Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber told the October 11 briefing that biometrics would support identity checks and identification of previous applications. He estimated the appeals backlog at around 120,000 but said an exact figure still needed confirmation. He also reported 74 advocates brought in to help process appeals. These are ministerial accounts of capacity and expected improvements, not guarantees of an individual applicant’s decision date.
Parliament demands an operational plan
On Saturday, October 10, Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs welcomed the withdrawal and resolved to convene an urgent in-person meeting on implementation of the Constitutional Court judgment. It directed the department, led by the Director-General, to provide a broader operational plan. That is a confirmed oversight step, not a replacement directive or proof that a new intake system is already in force.
The committee said the meeting should include the Ministers of Home Affairs and Employment and Labour, relevant parliamentary committees, the department’s immigration branch, the Border Management Authority and the Refugee Appeals Authority of South Africa. It also plans to hear civil-society organisations, is considering visits to refugee reception centres and has asked for caseload, staffing and appeals-capacity data.
Committee chair Mosa Chabane also called for clear timeframes for a draft bill covering citizenship, immigration and refugee law to reach Parliament. That demand may accelerate scrutiny, but the committee statement did not announce a filing date and a draft bill would still have to pass through the legislative process before becoming law.
Violence raises the stakes
The decision came after anti-immigrant violence in Soweto and Durban on Thursday. The Mail & Guardian reported that 24 vehicles were torched across the two cities and foreign-owned businesses were targeted. Police-linked accounts cited by the newspaper said three foreign nationals had been arrested over an alleged assault that may have contributed to unrest. The arrests are allegations, not convictions, and violence against people or businesses cannot be treated as proof against an entire community.
Officials reported calm on Friday while police remained on alert. The proximity of the violence to the asylum-policy reversal raises public-safety questions, but the government statement did not say the incidents alone caused the withdrawal. Its stated reasons were the overwhelmed offices and risks to officials, safety and public order.
What the announcement leaves unresolved
No interim intake arrangement or timetable for a replacement directive was included in the October 9 announcement. The October 11 plan now supplies a target and design, but the cited statements do not establish that the platform has launched. Applicants and service organisations still need practical instructions for the period before November 10, including where intentions are registered and how appointments are managed.
The distinction matters for accurate reporting. A department can withdraw an internal operational directive, but it cannot administratively erase a Constitutional Court declaration of invalidity. Equally, the judgment protects access to a merits-based process; it does not predetermine the outcome of any individual asylum claim.
The next evidence to watch is the October 29 hearing, publication of portal and assisted-access instructions, and the November 10 target. Faster first decisions will not automatically clear appeals. Reporting on the plan should distinguish a receipt from a permit, a target from a completed launch and a request to the court from an order the court has actually made.
This update preserves the original URL and publication timestamp and adds the later government announcement. The official Home Affairs emblem remains an institutional graphic, not documentary evidence of applicants, protests or conditions at a particular Refugee Reception Office.
