The Refugee Appeals Authority of South Africa (RASA) has confirmed that some foreigners are using asylum claims to evade prosecution in their home countries and delay extradition.
RASA chairperson Zilpha Raphesu told Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs on Friday, 9 October that the authority is “sitting with criminals”.
“We are unfortunately as RASA sitting with criminals that honourable members are referring to,” Raphesu said.
She said the authority was increasingly concerned about people seeking asylum to escape criminal prosecutions abroad.
“It is worrying every time to receive a call from State Security, because those that are channelled to us are those that are fleeing from prosecution, not persecution, prosecution from their countries of origin,” she said.
Raphesu said asylum applications were complicating extradition efforts.
“The Minister of Justice is struggling to extradite people through Interpol, because on the verge of extradition, those that should be extradited raise their intention to apply for asylum,” she said.
She said Justice Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi had been unable to extradite a person in a case in which RASA was cited as a party.
“RASA was cited as a party in those proceedings in the Pretoria High Court. So it’s a whole lot of them that we have in our backlog project that are fleeing from prosecution in their country of origin,” she said.
She did not disclose how many such cases were in RASA’s backlog or identify the person involved in the Pretoria High Court proceedings.
Raphesu said RASA applies the exclusion clause in section 4 of the Refugees Act, which bars people who have committed certain serious crimes from being granted refugee status.
She said the Constitutional Court’s July ruling had not invalidated the part of the law administered by RASA.
“Some of it was declared unconstitutional, but the part that we administer is still intact,” she said.
RASA has joined the legal battle over how the ruling should be applied.
The Judge President of the Gauteng Division of the High Court has scheduled a full bench hearing in Pretoria for 29 October. The court will consider two conflicting Gauteng judgments on the ruling.
“RASA has joined the fray to assist the court as a friend of the court. Mainly just to highlight the impact that this case will have on the authority, as well as to highlight some of the abuses that honourable members have highlighted here,” she said.
Raphesu warned that the authority expected its workload to grow.
“With the implementation of the Scalabrini case, our cases are going to increase,” she said.
RASA’s appeal backlog stood at 133,000 cases when it launched a backlog project with the United Nations refugee agency in October 2021.
By 2026, the backlog had increased to 161,000 cases.
“In 2026, we are sitting with 161,000 cases,” Raphesu revealed.
The authority relies on volunteer advocates to help clear the backlog, but they work part-time.
“We will need warm bodies that will be full-time, sitting with us to assist us with the backlog,” she said.
Committee chairperson Mosa Steve Chabane instructed the department to provide more details at the committee’s next physical meeting.
“I’m citing a matter that Raphesu raised, of holding criminals, those that have committed crime in their country of origin. You need to detail those issues,” Chabane said.
ATM leader Vuyolwethu Zungula raised the case of Rwandan genocide suspect Fulgence Kayishema during the meeting.
“He runs to South Africa, applies for asylum in South Africa using a different name. It is only over 20 years later that the guy was eventually caught, not by South Africa, not by Home Affairs, not by SAPS,” said Zungula.
Home Affairs director-general Thommy Makhode disputed that account.
“It is not factual that Fulgence was arrested without our support,” he said.
Kayishema was arrested in Paarl in May 2023 under the name Donatien Nibashumba.
Prosecutors said he had applied for asylum in January 2000, claiming to be Burundian, and used another name when seeking refugee status in 2004.
After his arrest, he abandoned his bail application and lodged an asylum application instead.
The case illustrates the tensions between asylum proceedings and efforts to extradite people wanted for prosecution abroad.
In another case, a man holding an asylum seeker permit was arrested on an Interpol warrant in 2014. He asked the courts to halt his extradition until his asylum claim had been decided.
The extradition was suspended while the litigation continued.
