The Rights of Vulnerable Groups | The Refugee Women Case

Using the law governing private security organisations, the Department of Home Affairs issued regulations to forbid refugees and asylum-seekers from working in private security firms without special permission. The Union of Women Refugees challenged the constitutionality of these regulations. All the judges agreed that the regulations were unconstitutionally over-technical, making it almost impossible for refugees to understand them and apply for exemption in any meaningful way. Justices O'Regan and Mokgoro held that at a more profound level the regulatory scheme violated the right to equality on grounds of national origin. Justice Sachs, who had been a refugee himself 'not once, but twice', took a less radical position. His point of departure was that South African refugee law had been adopted in a context in which African countries had received large numbers of refugees from apartheid South Africa; the relevant statute followed international law affirming the right of refugees to work in receiving countries. Nevertheless, a case could be made for keeping refugees, in relation to whom it was impossible to do security checks, out of security services involved in particularly sensitive forms of protection, for a period of five years after which they could get permanent residence. But a blanket exclusion that prevented refugees from working, for example as car guards, would not be justifiable.