The Lusaka High Court has quashed the deportations of two Rwandese because the Minister of Home Affairs did not follow the correct law and procedure when expelling them from Zambia. Judge Pixie Yangailo yesterday agreed with Lusaka Lawyer Dickson Jere who argued that the refugees cannot be deported as illegal immigrants when they are protected by the Refugee Act and international law.

The two, Innocent Habumugisha and Egide Rwasibo, a medical doctor at UTH we’re deported on the grounds that they were a danger to the peace and sedu “I hold that the declaration made by the minister of home affairs was ultra vires; that the applicants are not immigrants but are refugees,” Judge Yangailo said in the judgment delivered yesterday. “ the decision to deport the applicants was invalid and I so declare,” she said.

The two who included a medical doctor were deported from Zambia in 2015 but they challenged the decision through their lawyer Dickson Jere who argued refugees were protected special class of people under international law.