Special to USAfrica magazine, Houston
The African National Congress (ANC) has issued a statement following the judgment by South Africa’s Constitutional Court on Tuesday June 29, 2021 which found former President Jacob Zuma guilty of contempt of court and sentenced him to 15 months’ imprisonment. “The African National Congress has noted the judgment of the Constitutional Court in the matter of Secretary of the State Capture Commission v Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma. The ANC is currently studying the judgement. Without doubt, this is a difficult period in the movement and we call upon our members to remain calm. The meeting of the national executive committee (NEC) scheduled to take place this weekend, will reflect on the implications and consequences of the judgment. We further reaffirm our commitment to upholding the rule of law and fulfilling the aspirations of our constitutional democracy.” USAfricaonline.com
Why Zuma was sentenced to jail : The apex court further ordered that Zuma pay the legal costs spent by the State Capture Inquiry in bringing the matter before the court. The costs order was made on a punitive scale.
The ruling came after Zuma defied the Constitutional Court’s orders that he appear before the State Capture Inquiry and answer non-incriminating questions about his nine years in office. The inquiry then brought a contempt of court application against the former president. It argued he should be jailed for two years for his multiple acts of contempt against it, the country’s highest court and the judiciary itself.
Zuma will now have five days to present himself to police in either Nkandla, his home village, or Johannesburg, before he will be taken to a correctional centre.
If Zuma fails to follow the court’s order, the minister of police and the national police commissioner will have three days to take all steps “that are necessary and permissible in law to ensure that Mr Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma is delivered to a correctional centre in order to commence serving the sentence imposed”.
Zuma did not participate in the inquiry’s initial Constitutional Court application to compel him to testify before Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo after he walked out of the commission in November 2020. He also did not participate in the subsequent contempt case against him, nor did he comply with the court’s directives that he file an affidavit detailing what sanction he believed he should face.
Instead, he wrote a letter to outgoing Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, in which he compared the Constitutional Court to the apartheid government and said he was willing to become a “prisoner of the Constitutional Court”.
Delivering the court’s judgment on Tuesday morning, Acting Chief Justice Sisi Khampepe, who penned the majority judgment, said there was “no doubt” that Zuma was in contempt of court.
She said the court was left with no choice but to respond when its ability to uphold the Constitution was “besieged”.
“The matter is self-evidently extraordinary. It is thus in the interests of justice to depart from ordinary procedures. Never before has this Court’s authority and legitimacy been subjected to the kinds of attacks that Mr Zuma has elected to launch against it and its members. Never before has the judicial process been so threatened. Accordingly, it is appropriate for this Court to exercise its jurisdiction and assert its special authority as the apex Court and ultimate guardian of the Constitution, to the exclusion of the aegis of any other court,” Khampepe wrote.
She added the constitutional safeguards of the judiciary were “undermined so egregiously” and the court had to respond.
Noting Zuma’s attacks on the Constitutional Court and the judiciary, the country’s most senior judge (while Mogoeng is on extended leave) said never had “the authority and legitimacy of the Constitutional Court been subjected against these kinds of attacks”.
“Not only is Mr Zuma’s behaviour so outlandish as to warrant a disposal of ordinary procedure, but it is becoming increasingly evident that the damage being caused by his ongoing assaults on the integrity of the judicial process cannot be cured by an order down the line. It must be stopped now. Indeed, if we do not intervene immediately to send a clear message to the public that this conduct stands to be rebuked in the strongest of terms, there is a real and imminent risk that a mockery will be made of this Court and the judicial process in the eyes of the public. The vigour with which Mr Zuma is peddling his disdain of this Court and the judicial process carries the further risk that he will inspire or incite others to similarly defy this Court, the judicial process and the rule of law.”
The judgment noted that Zuma’s public statements defending his actions were irrelevant as he had not filed an affidavit to the court.
“Zuma, unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, squandered an opportunity to respect the rule of law in this country,” Khampepe said about the 21-page letter the former president sent to the chief justice, calling it “scandalous”.
Khampepe said there was “no sound or legal basis where he can claim to have been treated unfairly or victimised, and his unfounded allegations fly in the face of reason and is an insult to the constitutional dispensation which so many people have fought and died for”. ref: News24
