Realising the Child’s Right to a Nationality in South Africa therefore, she could not apply. The official at the local office simply had no idea how to facilitate the application. The Court recognised this fundamental flaw and ordered the Department to issue regulations within 12 months of the order being issued.75 This would allow local offices to process applications for stateless children instead of requiring a lawyer to escalate the matter to the head office and bring an application to the High Court. Section 25 of the Citizenship Act (as inserted by the 1995 Act) makes provision for a special statutory review of all decisions made by the Minister under the Act. This additional judicial oversight mechanism makes it easier for the courts to review the decisions of the Minister, including a consideration of the merits of individual cases and even to substitute the Minister’s decisions if necessary. Despite the Department’s contention that such a substitution is a violation of the separation of powers of government, the Court applied s 25 and declared DGLR to be a South African citizen.76 The power of the Court to review nationality decisions is crucial to an individual’s access to citizenship rights. The DGLR case aired all of the potential interpretive and practical barriers to s 2(2) and by settling these barriers, provided a clear way forward for South Africa’s best chance at eradicating statelessness in the country. B Chisuse v Director General, Department of Home Affairs 2. Citizenship by Birth (2) Any person— (a) who immediately prior to the date of commencement of the South African Citizenship Amendment Act, 2010, was a South African citizen by birth; or (b) who is born in or outside the Republic, one of his or her parents, at the time of his or her birth, being a South African citizen, shall be a South African citizen by birth.77 The Chisuse case was an attempt by five applicants to access their rights to South African citizenship through their South African parents. The case was ultimately heard by the Constitutional Court, which handed down an inspired judgment vindicating the rights of the applicants and providing a constitutionally sound interpretation of s 2(1) of the Citizenship Act which had previously been susceptible to exclusionary interpretation. When the Citizenship Act was amended in 2010, it removed the distinction between those born to South African citizens outside of South Africa (previously citizens by descent) and those born to South African citizens inside of South Africa (citizens by birth). In the amended Act, both categories are referred to as citizens by birth. There were no significant differentiating consequences for these two categories; Parliament seemed to want to do away with the arbitrary distinction and as a result both categories were included under one section.78 The way the new section was phrased posed a 75 76 77 78 DGLR Appeal (n 60) ord 4(d). ibid ord 3. Citizenship Act (n 24) s 2(1). Chisuse (n 52). 267