The South African Constitutional Court Decides Against Statelessness and In Favour of Children: Chisuse v Director-General, Department of Home Affairs [2020] ZACC 20

Abstract

The 2020 Chisuse case of the Constitutional Court of South Africa comes at a crucial moment in South Africa’s post-apartheid trajectory where the circle of citizenship is ‘shrinking’ The Constitutional Court decided in favour of four of the five foreign-born applicants, all children with one citizen parent, who had sought an order to be registered as citizens by the relevant government department, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA). The applicants argued that the DHA’s interpretation of the amended citizenship law violated their constitutional rights. Not deciding the matter on a constitutional basis, the Constitutional Court creatively and authoritatively interpreted the statutory regime in favour of the applicants. An example of the Court’s important national role in upholding a human rights-based vision of South African citizenship against persistent and potentially growing bureaucratic opposition, Chisuse also displays an interpretive approach both mindful of the risks of child statelessness and supportive of the place of civil birth registration in the global provision of legal identity for all.