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Migration Jurisprudence from the South › South Africa

Nandutu v. Minister of Home Affairs

Constitutional Court of South Africa · South Africa · 2019-06-28 · National court

Citation: [2019] ZACC 24
Type of case: Constitutional and human rights
Outcome: Decided for the migrant side

Question

Must foreign spouses of citizens leave the country to change their visa?

What the court decided

No. Requiring spouses and children of citizens and permanent residents to apply from abroad breached dignity; the rule was read to allow applications in the country.

In plain language

Foreign husbands and wives of South Africans had to leave the country to switch from a visitor visa to a spouse visa. The Constitutional Court said they may apply without leaving.

Dalam bahasa sederhana

Suami atau istri asing warga Afrika Selatan harus keluar negeri untuk mengganti visa kunjungan menjadi visa pasangan. MK menyatakan mereka boleh mengajukan tanpa keluar.

Pertanyaan: Haruskah pasangan asing warga negara meninggalkan negara itu untuk mengganti visa?

What happened afterwards

  • 2019-06-28: Rule read down.

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-nandutu-2019/. 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.

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