27 May 2026
There is a backlog of 161,00 asylum appeal cases, Parliament heard on Tuesday. Illustration: Lisa Nelson
South Africa is battling to clear a backlog of 161,000 cases in which asylum seekers who applied for refugee status had their applications rejected and appealed the rulings.
The Department of Home Affairs told Parliament on Tuesday that it has 70,976 active cases in which the applicants continue to renew their asylum permits while awaiting an outcome.
There are also 90,024 inactive cases in which the asylum seekers’ whereabouts are unknown, usually because applicants have died, left the country or moved into other immigration categories, such as spousal or critical skills visas.
The Refugee Appeals Authority, which adjudicates refugee applications rejected by Refugee Status Determination Officers, launched a backlog project in 2021 in partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), when the backlog was at 133,582 cases.
Since the start of the project 19,064 cases have been finalised. But new applications have been added, bringing the total backlog to 161,000.
Advocate Zilpha Raphesu, the appeals authority chairperson, told the portfolio committee on Tuesday that funding constraints hindered the project.
UNHCR only funded ten people to adjudicate appeal applications, out of 36 who were supposed to be part of the project. In 2025, the appeals authority started recruiting advocates part-time to assist with adjudication.
Rapheso said asylum seekers often “abuse” judicial review processes to avoid deportation.
“So far in the Backlog Project, in the work we’ve done, we’ve received 2,733 judicial reviews,” she said. The majority involved applicants from Ethiopia (1,509), the DRC (411) and Bangladesh (211).
Raphesu said many of the reviews are lodged at the last minute when applicants are facing deportation from the Lindela holding facility.
“These are disgruntled appellants who feel that maybe the High Court will come to a different conclusion from us,” she said.
Responding to criticism from MPs, Raphesu said they were intensifying efforts to reduce the backlog through digitisation and new adjudication strategies.
“The South African asylum process is marred by opportunistic claims that are clogging the process of adjudication,” she said.
She said the appeals authority had requested Gauteng Judge President Dunstan Mlambo to allocate dedicated courts for judicial reviews, but nothing has come of it.
Home Affairs acting deputy director (and former chief director for asylum seeker management) Mandla Madumisa added that digitisation had already helped the department identify more than 20,000 duplicate cases, where asylum seekers also appeared on other immigration permit systems.
