Motsoaledi announces ‘complete overhaul’ of immigration laws
South Africans have until the 19th of January
to comment on a draft policy proposing changes to the country’s immigration
laws.
Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi held a briefing on Sunday on the gazetting of the White Paper on Citizenship, Immigration and Refugee Protection.
Motsoaledi described the drafting of the document as a painstaking exercise to completely overhaul South Africa's migration system.
He says the country’s different pieces of legislation on the matter aren't aligned.
"The South African Citizenship Act is a relic of the colonial era and a replica of the 1949 Citizenship Act. The Immigration Act has been amended five times already since it came into existence in 2004."
The minister said when South Africa acceded to the Organisation of African Unity and United Nations conventions on refugee protection in 1996, it did so without having developed a clear policy on migration and refugees.
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“The white paper proposes that the government of the Republic of South Africa must review and/or withdraw from the 1951 convention and 1967 protocol with the view to exceed their reservations like other countries.
“And I don't want this fact to be misconstrued because people might get excited about it and I want to emphasise that there is absolutely nothing wrong that the United Nations has done, they did everything according to the book but there is everything wrong that we as South Africans have done. We need to press a reset button."
