---
title: "High court orders Department of Home Affairs to register birth of stateless man after 10-year battle"
description: "The Department of Home Affairs has been given 30 days to register the birth of Tebogo Khoza, a stateless man born in South Africa. The Pretoria high court found that since Khoza first attempted to have his birth and status as a South African citizen recognised in 2013, he had been sent from ‘pillar to post’ by the department — a situation that forced him to live in limbo."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "HELL AFFAIRS"
author: "Tamsin Metelerkamp"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/tamsin-metelerkamp/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-03-01-high-court-orders-department-of-home-affairs-to-register-birth-of-stateless-man-after-10-year-battle/"
published: "2023-03-01T15:08:22"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 853
---

# High court orders Department of Home Affairs to register birth of stateless man after 10-year battle

> The Department of Home Affairs has been given 30 days to register the birth of Tebogo Khoza, a stateless man born in South Africa. The Pretoria high court found that since Khoza first attempted to have his birth and status as a South African citizen recognised in 2013, he had been sent from ‘pillar to post’ by the department — a situation that forced him to live in limbo.

By Tamsin Metelerkamp · Published 1 March 2023, 17:08 SAST

## Key points
- The Pretoria high court has ruled that the Department of Home Affairs must register the birth of Tebogo Khoza, an orphaned South African who has been stateless for a decade. Khoza was born in South Africa but his birth had not been registered by his parents before they passed away. Despite applying for a late registration of birth when he was 16 years old, the department failed to assist him and sent him from “pillar to post” in his efforts to obtain citizenship. The court found that the department had shown “little to no basis” for refusing his claims, and ordered them to register Khoza’s birth, enter him into the National Population Register as a citizen and issue him with an identity number within 30 days. Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) have expressed hope that this judgement will herald a change in how cases of statelessness are treated, and highlighted the importance of addressing childhood statelessness which can force people to live on society’s margins without any form of legal identity.
- Pretoria high court orders Department of Home Affairs to register birth of Tebogo Khoza, a stateless orphan, after 10 years of struggle.
- Khoza was born in South Africa to undocumented parents and was not registered at birth.
- Court finds department had failed in its mandate to assist Khoza in obtaining South African citizenship and had sent him from “pillar to post”.
- Department of Home Affairs has been given 30 days to register Khoza’s birth and issue him with an identity number.

## Content

The Pretoria high court has ordered the Department of Home Affairs to register the birth of a man who has spent the last decade struggling to have his presence in South Africa recognised. In a judgement handed down on Monday 27 February, the court found that the department had failed in its mandate to assist Tebogo Khoza, a stateless orphan, in obtaining South African citizenship.

Khoza was born in South Africa to parents who were undocumented and in the country illegally, according to the court order. When he was orphaned at six years of age, his birth had not yet been registered by his biological parents. He was placed in the care of the Thabang Youth Centre in Limpopo at age nine.

In 2013, when Khoza was 16 years old, he first applied for a late registration of birth and an identity document at his local Home Affairs office. The high court found that he was subsequently sent from “pillar to post” by the department in his efforts to obtain citizenship, and was not assisted adequately, even when department officials made findings that supported his claims about his birth.

“It is clear from the evidence that the department has shown itself to be inflexible, oppositional and \[has provided\] little to no basis for its refusal to Mr Khoza’s claims,” stated the court. “Mr Khoza has done all he can do to comply for a decade… His infringement continues and he endures prejudice every day that he is not declared a citizen.”

The Department of Home Affairs has been given 30 days to register Khoza’s birth, enter him into the National Population Register as a citizen, issue him with an identity number and reissue his birth certificate accordingly.

Thandeka Chauke, an attorney at Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) who assisted in Khoza’s case, expressed the hope that the court’s judgement would herald a change in the way cases of statelessness were treated.

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“Throughout the judgement, you will see that the Department of Home Affairs’ attitude towards these cases is something that needs to be brought to account. We cannot simply be sending people from pillar to post when they need help from the very government, the very department, that has the constitutional mandate to provide the public with services such as civil registration and access to identity documentation,” she said.

“You will see throughout the judgement how an emphasis was put on the fact that a person who approaches the Department of Home Affairs for assistance needs to be assisted. It’s not enough for Home Affairs to… leave them in this indefinite state of not having an identity, of being stateless.”

#### **Contempt of court**

The high court order handed down on Monday further found that the Minister of Home Affairs had failed to promulgate regulations to give effect to section 2(2) of the Citizenship Act as required by section 23 of the act, despite three prior court orders instructing him to do so. This failure “amounted to contempt of court”, according to the judgement.

Section 2(2) of the Citizenship Act states that any person born in South Africa shall be a South African citizen at birth if:

- they do not have citizenship or nationality of any other country, or have no right to such citizenship or nationality; and
- if their birth is registered in South Africa in accordance with the Births and Deaths Registration Act.

“There has been a previous case that Lawyers for Human Rights launched in 2014, through the Pretoria high court… It was similar facts or circumstances to Tebogo’s case, concerning a child who was born in South Africa and who was stateless, and the Department of Home Affairs had refused to accept an application for citizenship on behalf of that child made in terms of Section 2(2) \[of the Citizenship Act\],” Chauke told *Maverick Citizen*.

In this case, the court instructed the department to make regulations for Section 2(2) of the Citizenship Act that would provide further guidance on how administrators could identify someone who was eligible for citizenship under the provision, she said.

“In respect to that order, the department was supposed to comply by March 2018, and already we are in 2023 and there are still no regulations to Section 2(2), which is why cases like Tebogo’s continue to come up because there is no mechanism through which stateless children can apply for citizenship.”

Statelessness in South Africa is a pervasive problem, continued Chauke. The Statelessness Unit at Lawyers for Human Rights has about 800 files open, 500 of which are related to birth registration issues.

“Why birth registration is linked to statelessness is because without a birth certificate, a child will struggle to prove two important facts that are critical to establishing what your nationality is, and that is place of birth and who your parents are,” said Chauke.

“It is important to address childhood statelessness because statelessness really forces a person to live on the margins of society — you cannot function or have a normal life without any form of legal identity.” **DM/MC**