SA ConCourt asked to hear spousal visa case

Should foreigners who marry in SA before the expiry of their three-month visitor visas be allowed to regularise their stay? In papers filed at the Constitutional Court, Home Affairs bluntly says ‘no’ and maintains that allowing this would lead to an abuse of immigration laws on a ‘drastic scale’, The Star reports. ‘Individuals will be able to travel to SA on a visitor’s visa and be immediately entitled to stay permanently at the expiry of the three months on the basis of an alleged spousal relationship,’ the department’s Rodney Marhule said in the papers. The affidavit was filed as a response to an application by two Cape Town couples who were angry over regulations that rule out their chances to acquire spousal visas. Home Affairs required the partners to travel back to their countries and obtain new visas there, something which the applicants maintained separated their families. Gary Simon Eisenberg, the attorney for all four applicants, said in the papers his clients sought to be allowed to obtain spousal visas without travelling back to their countries. ‘The applicants submit that the regulation constitutes an unjustifiable limitation to their right to dignity,’ Eisenberg said, adding it was also unclear how accepting these applications from within SA was more inconvenient than processing them via foreign embassies. But Marhule said the regulations were justified and were meant to prevent the defrauding of immigration processes.

Full report in The Star