Advocating for accountability: civic-state interactions to protect refugees in South Africa

Abstract

In the 1950s, civic actors in South Africa mobilised against racist laws that penetrated nearly every aspect of civic life. The social justice struggle that eventually displaced white minority rule culminated in democratic elections in 1994. Following this historic transition from authoritarian rule to democracy, other issues came to the fore, including how the South African government was to receive persons claiming refugee status on the basis of persecution and war. Civic actors again mobilised around these ‘new’ human rights and social justice issues; they became engaged either in working with government to develop a refugee policy, or in confronting the government to fulfil its national and international obligations towards refugees. This book discusses the dynamics of civic-state interactions aimed at the state’s obligations to promote, protect and fulfil human rights. Through the lens of refugee rights advocacy in South Africa in the first decade of its post-1994 period of democracy, this book examines and explains the circumstances under which civic-state interactions can lead to structural change, and what these interactions can teach us about the potential of civic society to realise rights in general. In any social justice struggle, the key to civic actors being able to hold states and their governments accountable for their human rights obligations lies in civic actors making strategic choices. Making strategic choices has various implications for civic actors. First, civic actors must appreciate the social, political and legal context in which they operate; this historical appreciation reveals certain structural boundaries to realising rights that are nearly always imposed by the state. Second, civic actors must critically assess these structural boundaries that condition their behaviour, but also have the potential for structural change or ‘elaboration’, through civic actors interacting with the state in formal and also informal interventions. Third, civic actors must appreciate the social distance that always exists between themselves and the government, measured by divergences in meanings, interests and political positions. Through a critical engagement in this ‘external’ relationship, it is possible for civic actors to capitalize on these divergences in advocating a state’s accountability for realising human rights. Whether the social distance ought to be narrowed or broadened at a particular moment depends on (1) the context in which this takes place, (2) the structural boundaries that exist, and (3) the desired outcome. Three examples of refugee rights advocacy, and the corresponding social distance that existed between civic actors and the government in South Africa are examined. The first concerns the process of bringing a formal refugee policy into place. The second example focuses on the implementation of a separate policy to resolve the situation of former Mozambican refugees in the country. The third example focuses on the manner in which the rights of refugees have been litigated through the South African courts. Drawing on these three examples, the book concludes that a critical engagement with the government by civic actors, reflected in the strategic choices that they make, allows civic actors to take advantage of a narrow, but significant space for achieving structural change.