South Africa’s courts spent more than R76 million on foreign‑language interpreting in criminal cases in 2024/25, as nearly 40,000 new matters involving foreign nationals were recorded in district and regional courts over the same period. Justice and Constitutional Development Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi disclosed the figures in written replies to parliamentary questions, underscoring both the scale and the complexity of administering justice in multiple languages across the country.
Responding to African Transformation Movement (ATM) MP Vuyo Zungula, Kubayi said the department’s Electronic Case Management System showed that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) recorded 1,074 new cases involving foreign nationals in regional courts and 37,967 in district courts. “The NPA does not keep electronic record of the number of foreign nationals that were granted bail and subsequently failed to appear in court,” she said.
Kubayi clarified that the nationality of the accused is captured in the database, but that the flag does not indicate immigration status. In other words, being listed as a foreign national does not, on its own, show whether an accused person is in the country lawfully. Kubayi further said the database did not record whether the foreign nationals were granted bail and subsequently failed to appear in court. “The NPA is therefore unable to provide the requested information.”
Pressed by ATM MP Thandiswa Marawu on the cost of translation and interpretation for non‑official South African languages in criminal proceedings, Kubayi said the department spent R76,178,462 between April 2024 and March 2025. According to the minister, courts provide interpreting — not translation — services, and do so for both the 12 official South African languages and foreign languages where required. “Translation services done in courts are done by in-house interpreters for courts and there is no cost related to it.”
The spend is concentrated in languages most frequently required by accused and witnesses. Kubayi said the language that attracted the highest total expenditure nationally is Shona — widely spoken in Zimbabwe — with a bill totalling R8.7 million. Five provinces — Free State, Gauteng, Northern Cape, North West, and Limpopo — recorded Shona as their main cost driver, while the remaining provinces each spent over R200,000 on Shona interpretation during the year.
The minister reiterated that her department does not break down criminal‑case spending by the immigration status of accused persons. “Therefore, it is not possible to identify or quantify the costs specifically associated with cases involving illegal immigrants. The expenditure is recorded based on the interpreting services provided rather than the legal status of individuals appearing in court.” She added that interpreter expenditure is captured under foreign‑language services supporting proceedings where an interpreter is required, not the nature of the underlying charge. “The records do not distinguish
between foreign nationals based on their legal status, as they appear in court on various charges, not only immigration-related cases.”
While justice officials accounted for courtroom costs, Home Affairs painted a picture of stepped‑up enforcement beyond the courthouse doors. In a reply to MK Party MP Mnqobi Msezane, Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber said 109,735 illegal foreigners were arrested and deported in the past financial year. Over the same period, 6,279 workplace inspections were conducted to check compliance with immigration and labour rules.
Schreiber reported that, over the past five years, a total of 8,180 employers were charged for employing foreign nationals without valid work permits. “Penalties and/or sanctions that are imposed in cases where employers have employed foreign nationals without valid work permits is in terms of section of the Immigration Act, Act 13 of 2002.” The figures signal heightened scrutiny of both undocumented migrants and the businesses that hire them, even as the courts shoulder a growing caseload requiring interpretation in non‑official languages.
Yet, once court processes end, prison overcrowding pressures are not being eased by repatriating sentenced foreign offenders to serve time in their home countries. Correctional Services Minister Piet Groenewald told Parliament that South Africa lacks the legal framework to transfer prisoners across borders. He said South Africa does not have an enabling domestic law to regulate and facilitate the transfer of sentenced foreign offenders — or South Africans jailed abroad — to serve their terms in their countries of origin. Groenewald also confirmed there are no bilateral interstate transfer agreements “through memorandum of understanding or otherwise.”
In practice, that leaves two departments to coordinate at the end of a sentence. “The Department of Correctional Services is responsible for identifying foreign nationals in its detention facilities and reporting such individuals to the Department of Home Affairs (DHA). The DHA is responsible for establishing/confirming the nationality of such offenders and initiating the deportation of those whose stay in the Republic of South Africa is illegal or undesirable.” Groenewald said Correctional Services hands over foreign national offenders to the relevant authorities upon release or parole placement. The prisoners are normally detained at a Home Affairs‑run repatriation centre until deportation.
Taken together, the ministerial replies sketch a justice system contending with multilingual criminal proceedings at scale, a migration enforcement drive yielding high numbers of deportations and charges against non‑compliant employers, and a corrections regime constrained by the absence of prisoner transfer laws or agreements. In the courts, R76.178 million was spent making proceedings intelligible and fair where foreign‑language interpretation was necessary — led by Shona demand — while nearly 40,000 new cases involving foreign nationals moved onto the dockets of district and regional courts.
But the data gaps noted by Kubayi — especially on bail outcomes and immigration status — illustrate the limits of current systems to answer politically charged questions about court costs tied to “illegal immigrants.” As the minister put it, interpreting spend is recorded by service delivered, not a person’s legal status. And while Home Affairs and Correctional Services push deportations post‑release, the lack of legal instruments to transfer sentenced offenders means foreign nationals serve their time in South African prisons before any handover to the DHA.
For lawmakers scrutinising costs and caseloads, the policy implications are clear: sustained demand for foreign‑language court services, rising enforcement activity beyond the courtroom, and structural constraints after conviction — all moving parts in a national debate where accurate, disaggregated data are still catching up.
