CHREAA welcomes High Court ruling on illegal detention of immigrants

The Centre for Human Rights Education, Advice, and Assistance (CHREAA) has welcomed a High Court ruling made in Mzuzu on Monday, ordering the State to be effecting deportation of illegal immigrants within 30 days.

This is the case, which was brought by 25 immigrants illegally held at Mzuzu Prison who were represented by the Legal Aid Bureau with support from CHREAA and the Southern African Litigation Centre (SALC).

The applicants have been under illegal detention as they continued to be detained at Mzuzu prison despite their remand warrants expiring in January 2024. Others are still being detained even though they finished serving their sentences and were supposed to be deported in June this year.

The court’s verdict stated that in the current constitutional dispensation, people cannot be detained indefinitely, be it citizens or foreign nationals.

The Court, also ordered the State to provide a progress report to the Court within 30 days on the steps taken to deport such foreign nationals. Furthermore, it sustained the order that children ought not to be detained in prison.

“We are very happy with the ruling. For a long time now, our prisons have been keeping these people for unlimited time. So, it was like they were being dumped,” CHREAA executive director Victor Mhango said.

Mhango said this is going to serve a lot of things, more especially resources to the prison department.

“It is going to relieve pressure because what was happening is that the number of foreigners were even exceeding the capacity of the prisoners. So, if you mix the foreigners and our local prisoners, it was too much for the prison department and the resources were being spent for nothing.

“Obviously the trend violated human rights of the immigrants because you cannot keep a person in custody without actually obeying what the court said,” added Mhango.

Also, commenting on the judgment, human rights lawyer who is also the Head of Criminal Justice Program at SALC, Chikondi Chijozi, said it is commendable that the Legal Aid Bureau took up the matter, having observed that there are so many immigrants that are detained illegally in prisons.

“The judgment is very progressive as it urges the State to consider alternative options such as issuing temporary permits, release on bonds or recognizance and encouraging self-repatriation,” Chijozi said.

On his part, Lawyer Chimwemwe Chithope-Mwale of Legal Aid Bureau, who represented the applicants said: “When we visited Mzuzu Prison and found that over 100 immigrants were being detained with the offence of illegal entry, we were concerned with the overcrowding in the prisons and our assessment of the cases showed that they were actually illegal immigrants detained and we decided to challenge that.”

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