Ninety days in prison. That is the ultimatum the North Gauteng High Court has delivered to South Africa’s Minister of Home Affairs and the department’s Director-General.

Judge Selemeng Mokose issued the scathing ruling this week, rejecting the department’s attempt to rescind a previous order that granted citizenship to Mikhail Sakharov, a foreign national married to a South African citizen. The court found the department’s failure to comply with the original September 2024 directive was not just an administrative oversight. It was willful. It was bad faith.

Sakharov’s path to citizenship should have been straightforward. He obtained permanent residence in December 2013. He has been married to a South African citizen for over five years. Yet, when he attempted to apply for naturalization, officials repeatedly blocked him. They demanded he first verify a permanent residence permit that he already held. The law does not require this. The department insisted anyway.

"The court was not persuaded," Judge Mokose wrote in her judgment. She dismissed the department’s request for condonation regarding an 11-month delay in filing their rescission application. The department claimed they needed more time to reconstruct the case history. The court saw it differently. It was a stall tactic.

The Limits of Bureaucratic Discretion

At the heart of the dispute is a fundamental question: do officials have the power to invent hurdles that the law does not prescribe? The court’s answer was a firm no.

Judge Mokose relied on Supreme Court of Appeal precedent to clarify the limits of departmental authority. Once a candidate meets the statutory requirements for citizenship, officials lose their discretion. They cannot refuse an application based on internal, unwritten procedures. They must process it.

This ruling serves as a sharp rebuke to a department frequently criticized for its backlogs and opaque decision-making. By insisting on a verification process that exists nowhere in the Citizenship Act, Home Affairs effectively held Sakharov’s legal status hostage. The court has now stripped away that leverage.

A Pattern of Non-Compliance

The judgment goes beyond the specifics of one man’s application. It addresses the broader culture of the department. Judge Mokose noted that the disregard for court orders undermines the rule of law. It erodes public confidence in the justice system.

When a government department ignores a high court order, it signals that the law is optional. The court has now made it mandatory. If the department fails to register Sakharov’s citizenship and issue his identity document within 15 days, the Minister and Director-General face immediate incarceration.

Key Takeaways

  • The High Court found the Department of Home Affairs in contempt for failing to recognize the citizenship of a foreign national who met all legal requirements.
  • Judge Mokose ruled that officials have no legal discretion to deny citizenship applications once statutory criteria are met, regardless of internal "verification" demands.
  • The Minister and Director-General face a 90-day prison sentence if the department does not comply with the court's order within 15 days.

For now, the clock is ticking. The department has two weeks to finalize the paperwork. If they fail, the legal consequences will be personal, immediate, and unprecedented. The judiciary has drawn a line. It is waiting to see if the executive will cross it.