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Tomorrow the Department of Home Affairs will decide whether or not it will grant refugee status to Serbian fugitive, Dobrosav Gavric.

Mr Gavric faces a 35-year jail sentence in his home country for two counts of murder and one of assassination.

The Refugees Act, No. 130 of 1998, states that refugee status should be granted on the grounds of an applicant’s life being in danger due to persecution as a result of their race, tribe, nationality, religion, political opinion or membership of a particular social group; or if there is war in their home country.

Mr Gavric meets none of these criteria.

I will today be writing to the Minister to urge her to reject Mr Gavric’s application on three grounds:

An application for asylum or refugee status must be submitted within 14 days of arriving in the country. Mr Gavric has been living in South Africa since 2007. It appears that his application is solely a last ditch attempt to prevent his extradition to Serbia to face criminal charges.
To be considered a refugee, applicants must prove that they are fleeing persecution in their home country. However, Mr Gavric’s reasons for coming to South Africa are, by his own admission, not linked to any threat of persecution. He is quoted as saying “The reason I opted to come to South Africa was because I heard that it was a stable country with new opportunities. I wanted to build a new life and raise my children in a solid society”.
Refugee status cannot be granted if there is reason to believe that the applicant has committed a crime which, if committed in South Africa, would be punishable by imprisonment. Mr Gavric faces charges of murder in Serbia, which is a direct breach of this provision.

South Africa receives the highest annual influx of asylum seekers in the world – approximately 250 000 per year. This country urgently requires a human-rights based, professional and efficient system to properly process and integrate genuine asylum seekers, who are fleeing persecution and desperately require protection.

The Zuma government has a reputation for welcoming dictators to our country, and shunning defenders of human rights like the Dalai Lama.

The Minister of Home Affairs must not allow this same warped logic to dictate our refugee policy. She must not allow South Africa’s refugee system, intended to protect individuals fleeing from persecution in their own countries, to be abused to protect suspected criminals.

The Minister has made this mistake once before when she granted refugee status to Rwandan Lieutenant-General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, who is wanted in connection with war crimes in his home country.

She must seize the opportunity tomorrow to make sure that this does not happen again.