Friday’s official statement by the Director General of Home Affairs, Mkuseli Apleni, is contrary to the department’s regulations it gazetted on 22 May last year.
This is the view of Professor Victoria Bronstein of University of the Witwatersrand School of Law.
The statement that appeared on the Home Affairs website does not conform with the regulations or the latest version of the Advisory with Standard Operating Procedures they issued on 26 May. It is completely ambiguous, Professor Bronstein told Tourism Update.
In his statement Apleni said: "Where both parents are travelling with valid passports and visas the unabridged birth certificate is not a requirement since these additional documents would have been provided when applications were made for passports and visas.”
This is not allowed for in the regulations that were gazetted. No provision is made for exceptions in the regulations and that would apply also to another spokesman’s comment that South African citizens where both parents are travelling with the minor would not need to show an unabridged birth certificate.
