Constitutional Court Seals Door on Multiple Asylum Bids in South Africa

South Africa’s Constitutional Court has closed a significant legal door for asylum seekers, ruling that foreign nationals cannot file a second application once an initial claim has been rejected. The majority judgment, delivered this week, explicitly warned against what the bench called a potential “never-ending cycle” of reapplications, a phrase that captures the court’s core concern about administrative paralysis.

The case originated in 2018, when two Burundian nationals sought to reapply for asylum four years after their original applications were denied in 2014. Their argument was grounded in changed circumstances back home. They pointed to the political upheaval that followed then-President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to seek a third consecutive term, a move that triggered the 2015 presidential election crisis and left at least 70 people dead. The Supreme Court of Appeal initially sided with the Burundians. The Constitutional Court reversed that decision, bringing the protracted legal battle to its final resolution.

The court’s reasoning was structural rather than purely humanitarian. Justices found that no proper legislative framework existed to manage unlimited reapplications, and that permitting such filings without clear statutory guidance would paralyze deportation processes and generate dysfunction across the entire asylum system.

By contrast, the government welcomed the outcome without reservation. Leon Schreiber, South Africa’s minister of home affairs and a Democratic Alliance member within the coalition government, called the ruling a “major victory” against what he described as “abuse” of refugee protections. Speaking to broadcaster Newzroom Afrika, Schreiber said his department had led the legal argument against the Supreme Court of Appeal’s position. He warned that the earlier ruling would have allowed individuals multiple “bites at the cherry,” enabling systematic exploitation of asylum mechanisms. He framed the Constitutional Court’s decision as essential to building a more “effective and fair system to manage refugees and asylum seekers.”

The ruling lands at a volatile moment. South Africa has recently seen waves of protests against undocumented migrants, with thousands demonstrating in major cities and demanding mass deportations. Several African governments have raised alarms through the African Union and issued warnings to their citizens about potential violence targeting foreigners.

President Cyril Ramaphosa of the African National Congress addressed the tensions earlier this week, describing certain actors as “opportunists” who had orchestrated anti-immigrant violence. In an open letter, he stated that “the recent violent protests and criminal acts directed at foreign nationals in parts of our country do not represent the views of South Africa’s people nor reflect our government’s policy.”

The numbers behind this debate are substantial. Approximately 2.4 million migrants reside in South Africa, representing just under 4% of the total population, though unofficial estimates suggest the real figure is considerably higher. As Africa’s most industrialized economy, the country draws workers and asylum seekers from across the continent. The United Nations refugee agency reported that South Africa hosted more than 167,000 refugees and asylum seekers in 2025 (a figure that predates the Constitutional Court’s ruling), with the majority coming from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, South Sudan, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe.

What remains unresolved is how the ruling will interact with genuine cases of changed circumstances, the very argument the Burundian applicants raised. The court’s decision rests partly on the absence of legislative frameworks, which leaves open the question of whether Parliament will eventually draft statutory guidance that carves out exceptions, or whether the door stays shut regardless of what unfolds in a refugee’s country of origin.