IN a mass legal action alleging substantial flaws in the way Home Affairs deals with asylum seekers, 15 Bangladeshi men are suing the Minister of Home Affairs in the Port Elizabeth High Court for damages, claiming they were unlawfully arrested and detained.
The case follows warnings by Lawyers for Human Rights in their report on the detention of foreigners in South Africa, released in June this year, that the failure to address "long-term substantive and administrative failures" within the Department of Home Affairs was leading to costly court cases that the country could ill afford.
The leader of Home Affairs' legal team, Advocate Marumo Moerane SC, however, told the court at the start of the trial thatthe department's case would be that all 15 men were illegal foreigners who were arrested and detained pending their deportation after their applications for asylum in South Africa were dismissed by a refugee status officer.
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