South Africa’s Constitutional Court has ruled that foreign nationals cannot submit new asylum applications after an initial rejection, a decision that will fundamentally reshape how the country processes refugee claims. The judgment overturned a previous ruling by the Supreme Court of Appeal that had sided with asylum seekers challenging the restriction.
The court found that allowing endless reapplications without a proper legislative framework would create what it described as a “never-ending cycle,” effectively blocking deportations and placing severe administrative strain on government systems. That reasoning formed the core of the majority judgment.
The case began with two Burundian nationals who attempted to reapply for asylum in 2018, four years after their initial applications were rejected in 2014. Their argument rested on changed circumstances in Burundi. Between 2015 and the time of their reapplication, the country had experienced significant political upheaval, triggered by then-President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to seek a third consecutive term. The move sparked widespread unrest, and at least 70 people died in the violence that followed.
The Burundians initially prevailed at the appellate level. The Constitutional Court, sitting as South Africa’s final court of appeal, reversed that outcome.
Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber hailed the ruling as a “major victory” against what he called “abuse” of the refugee system. Speaking to Newzroom Afrika, Schreiber explained that his department had led the government’s legal argument against the Supreme Court of Appeal’s position, warning that the appellate ruling would have enabled individuals to make repeated attempts at asylum status and to “constantly abuse the system” through successive applications. Schreiber, a member of the Democratic Alliance (the coalition’s second-largest party), described the judgment as essential to building a more “effective and fair system to manage refugees and asylum seekers.” The coalition government is led by President Cyril Ramaphosa of the African National Congress.
Meanwhile, the ruling arrives against a backdrop of acute social tension. South Africa has recently seen waves of anti-immigrant protests, with thousands demonstrating in major cities and demanding mass deportations of undocumented migrants. Several African nations have raised alarms at the African Union and issued warnings to their citizens about potential violence. Ramaphosa responded this week, describing those behind anti-immigrant attacks as “opportunists” who had orchestrated the unrest. 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 scale of the challenge is considerable. The UN refugee agency recorded more than 167,000 refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa in 2025, with the largest populations coming from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, South Sudan, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe. Beyond those officially recognized populations, approximately 2.4 million migrants live in the country overall, representing just under 4 percent of the national population according to official statistics, though unofficial estimates place the figure substantially higher. As Africa’s most industrialized economy, South Africa continues to draw workers from across the continent.
What remains unresolved is how the government will handle cases where conditions in an applicant’s home country deteriorate sharply after a rejection, and whether the new legal framework will face further challenges as those situations arise.