Legal challenge to termination of Zimbabwe Exempti...

Legal challenge to termination of Zimbabwe Exemption Permits continues

· Foundation says June 2023 extension does not address termination defects

· Lack of public consultation named major defect

· Potential negative impact of expelling Zimbabweans not scientifically analysed

Zim Now Writer

The Helen Suzman Foundation is going ahead with its legal challenge of the termination of the Zimbabwe Exemption Permit (ZEP) not withstanding extension of the permits to June 2023.

Termination will affect about 180 000 Zimbabweans, some of whom have lived and worked in SA for over a decade,

“The extension of the ZEP to 30 June 2023 while potentially holding out some relief to individual ZEP holders does not, in our view, cure the fundamental defects in the minister’s decision to end the permit and so the court action continues,” foundation director Nicole Fritz said on Tuesday said in a statement after her comments in an opinion piece on the News24 website on Tuesday.

She said that the extension does not nullify the defects in issuance of the termination.

“The primary defect, not remedied by the extension, is that these decisions have been taken without any form of public consultation whatsoever — no prior notice, no calls for representations from affected ZEP holders, no notice and comment process, no public inquiries and no meaningful engagement with civil society,” she said.

“This flies in the face of the most basic tenets of procedural fairness and ensures an uninformed decision. The extension also fails to demonstrate any more compelling reasons in support of the decision to end the ZEP than was the case before the extension was granted and, without more, it doesn’t genuinely offer ZEP holders any greater an opportunity to migrate to other visas or secure individual waivers and exemptions and so regularise their status.”

Fritz said the legal challenge is for the benefit of ZEP holders living in SA lawfully for more than a decade who have contributed to the country in many ways.

She also said besides not giving those permit holders a chance to input before a decision to make, the authorities have not been transparent in their dealings.

‘Very little reason has been proffered by the department for the decision to terminate the ZEP. In fact, in an about-turn, it now says that it made no decision, it simply allowed the ZEP to lapse and so essentially it needs no reason,” Fritz said.

Frizt says SA government has also not properly assessed effects of the termination on the country.

“The minister has vaguely gestured to unemployment and crime at different points as some sort of justification. But there’s no data to support such reasons and in their legal papers the department appears wisely to have abandoned such explanation.

“Bad decisions taken by government — decisions without considered reason and deliberation — impact us negatively even if we are not the direct targets.