The South African Minister of Home Affairs, Aaron Motsoaledi, recently lost a court case that anyone could have anticipated was unwinnable. He probably expected to lose it too. He lost it on humanitarian and technical grounds. It prevents him from terminating the South African government’s concession to refugees from neighbouring Zimbabwe nearly fifteen years ago.
In April 2009, South Africa provided legalised shelter for Zimbabweans hit by economic and political crisis in their country across the Limpopo River. The Zimbabwe Dispensation Project was the first form of a policy to temporarily accommodate Zimbabwean refugees. It became the Zimbabwean Special permit in 2014 and after 2017 it was known as the Zimbabwe Exemption Permit. Zimbabweans who had arrived during the crisis period of 2008-09 had full freedoms, but no rights to citizenship even for their children, for as long as the permits allowed.
