The Democratic Alliance (DA) has described as irrational and obscure a law that strips South Africans of their citizenship.
This follows complaints from citizens based in London who tried to renew their South African citizenship, only to discover that they are no longer South African citizens because they have claimed additional citizenship.
This is because, under the current Citizenship Act in South Africa, you have to first apply to the Department of Home Affairs for permission to get another citizenship.
However, DA MP Adrian Roos says the party is opposed to this law and will fight it in the High Court on behalf of thousands of South Africans who have lost their citizenship without their knowledge.
“The DA is challenging this law in court. It is not a particularly rational law seeing as the Department of Home Affairs has previously stated that it has nothing against dual citizenship. But if that’s your policy, then you must not say you support dual citizenship.”
“If you look at the interim Constitution, it spoke about the fact that no citizen shall be without justification and this was changed in the final Constitution. They removed the words without justification to say this right should obsolete that you shouldn’t be deprived of your citizenship. So the argument of the DA [is] that if anything, [you] should have to legitimately and actively renounce your citizenship before you can lose it,” says Roos.
Below is the full interview with DA MP Adrian Roos:
