Migration Jurisprudence from the South › South Africa

Abore v. Minister of Home Affairs

Constitutional Court of South Africa · South Africa · 2021-12 · National court

Citation: [2021] ZACC 50
Type of case: Constitutional and human rights
Outcome: Decided for the migrant side

Question

Must a detained foreigner who says he wants asylum be released to apply?

What the court decided

Yes. Once a person states an intention to seek asylum, they must be allowed to apply and may not be deported until the claim is decided.

In plain language

An Ethiopian man was arrested for being in South Africa without papers and said he wanted asylum. The Constitutional Court said he must be released to apply.

Dalam bahasa sederhana

Seorang pria Etiopia ditangkap karena berada di Afrika Selatan tanpa dokumen dan menyatakan ingin mencari suaka. MK menyatakan ia harus dibebaskan untuk mengajukannya.

Pertanyaan: Haruskah orang asing yang ditahan dan menyatakan ingin mencari suaka dibebaskan untuk mengajukannya?

What happened afterwards

2021-12: Judgment. [Check date.]

Sources

Open this decision in the interactive collection (compare, filter, Indonesian view, downloads).

Cite as: Institute for Migrant Rights (2026), Migration Jurisprudence from the South, version 0.1, https://theimr.org/court-decisions/d/za-abore-2021/. This page summarizes a court decision for research and advocacy; it is not legal advice.

For researchers

This collection of decisions is built for empirical legal scholarship and socio-legal research on migration and the rights of migrant workers, as well as for advocacy.

The coded variables support statistical analysis in law: cross-national comparison, regression and event-history designs, and law and economics questions such as how recruitment fees, wage protection and limits on changing employer affect migrant workers. The data can be downloaded for replication.

Keywords: case law; jurisprudence; judicial decisions; comparative constitutional law; courts and migration; judicial behavior; litigation outcomes; refugee law; non-refoulement; citizenship and nationality; empirical legal studies; empirical legal scholarship; quantitative legal research; statistical analysis in law; law and economics; law and economics of migration; comparative law; socio-legal studies; legal pluralism; migration law; labor migration; migrant workers’ rights; human rights law; access to justice; Global South; Asia; Africa; Middle East; Latin America; Indonesia; open data; replication data.