ZEP holders will suffer irreparable harm, argues l...

ZEP holders will suffer irreparable harm, argues lawyer

Zim Now Writer

The holders of the Zimbabwean Exemption Permit will suffer irreparable harm should the Department of Home Affairs terminate the programme, Advocate Thembeka Ngcukaitobi argued in the Pretoria High Court

Ngcukaitobi is representing 1 000 Zimbabweans under the Zimbabwean Immigration Federation before a full bench in the Pretoria High Court.

The Zimbabwean Immigration Federation is challenging the Department’s decision to no longer renew the dispensation.

The ZEP is a special permit issued in terms of the Immigration Act, that currently allows 178 000 holders and their children temporary legal status to live, work and study in South Africa.

The ZEP was introduced by the South African government in 2009 to cope with the influx of Zimbabwean nationals who fled political and economic turmoil in their own country.

The termination of the programme, Ngcukaitobi says, will render the Zimbabweans as illegal immigrants after June 30 this year.

“The simple question is, on the first of July 2023, what will happen to the 178 000 recipients of the ZEP programme? What will happen to them? It is common cause on the facts that overnight, they will be rendered illegal immigrants in South Africa.

“That would mean either, they deport themselves voluntarily, but the facts show that they are unable to return to Zimbabwe for the reasons that will be articulated.

“What it would then mean is that they would be liable to forced deportation. Alternatively, they would be liable to arrest because they would have violated the provisions of the act.”

Meanwhile, Zimbabwean Exemption Permit Holders Association legal counsel, Advocate Simba Chitando, has said they will today ask the court to grant ZEP holders permanent residence in South Africa.

“ZEPHA believes that ZEP holders have lived in South Africa long enough to become residents and have taken the view that continuous extensions are unfairly expensive and unlawful.

“We have waited a long time for this hearing, and hope for a favourable decision from the Court,” he said.

The Department of Home Affairs last year announced that the ZEP system would be terminated in June 2023, saying by that time, ZEP holders would have to apply for “regular” SA visas.

Also, several Lesotho nationals living and working under the so-called Lesotho Exemption Permit have been told that their services are no longer required.