HOME AFFAIRS Minister Aaron Motsoaledi will pay R222 862 for failing to listen to the courts.
The Constitutional Court slapped Motsoaledi and the department's director-general (DG), Livhuwani Makhode, with personal costs for failing to amend sections of the Immigration Act six years after the court ordered it.
The minister said he accepts and respects the judgment and order of the highest court in the land.
“The minister and the director-general will pay the personal costs as ordered by the court. This will happen as soon as the taxed bill of costs is presented by Lawyers for Human Rights,” said his spokesman Thabo Mokgola.
Mokgola claimed that Motsoaledi was “in the dark” about the litigation and how it was conducted by the officials and legal representatives.
On Monday, 31 October, the Constitutional Court said Motsoaledi and Makhode were liable for 10% and 25% personal cost orders, respectively.
“The Minister has never come across a situation in which officials and legal representatives decide to go to court in his name without his knowledge and any consultation with him.
"As the court found, these were indeed lapses of extraordinary range and gravity,” he said
The court had in 2017 declared that Section 34(1)(b) and (d) of the Immigration Act 13 of 2002 were invalid and unconstitutional. The court said this because they unlawfully conferred a power to detain an individual without objectively assessing the circumstances warranting that power. The court also declared that it did not allow detainees to appear in court before the extension of their detainment.
ALSO READ: Shock as crowd sets dogs on a cop!
Nothing was done to comply with the order.
Parliament has been given two years to allow MPs to make the necessary changes.
The department will try to recover the money paid to Mike Bofilados SC, who represented in the case, and corrective measures will be taken against all officials involved in this saga.
Mokgola pointed out that Motsoaledi has already prepared the Immigration Amendment Bill (dealing with section 34 amendments), and it is on its way to the Cabinet.
He said the minister accepts that he is ultimately responsible for the fulfilment of the objectives of the department and the actions or failures of all officials serving under him.
“He further accepts that he has a higher duty to ensure that court orders are complied with and that officials under him do not repeat a comedy of errors and gross negligence seen in this case," said Mokgola.
