JOHANNESBURG: After years of evading the courts through ongoing delaying tactics related to corruption charges against him, South Africa’s fourth democratically elected President Jacob Zuma found out on Tuesday that nobody is above the law when he was sentenced to 15 months in prison.
In an unprecedented ruling by the country’s apex court against a former head of state, Zuma was found guilty of contempt of court for failure to obey a previous order made by the Constitutional Court in Secretary of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into allegations of state capture, corruption and fraud in the public sector.
In a judgment read out by Acting Chief Justice Sisi Khampepe yesterday, Zuma was found guilty of contempt of court for failure to comply with the order and has to turn himself in at a police station nearest to his home in Nkandla in KwaZulu Natal or to the Johannesburg Central Police Station in Gauteng to begin his sentence. He was given five days to do this.
If it does happen voluntarily, Khampepe ordered the Police Minister Bheki Cele or National Police Commissioner Khehla Sitole to take action against Zuma.
The order sent shockwaves around South Africa with pro-Zuma supporters labelling it an injustice while opponents of the leader tainted by corruption scandals before and during his time in office between 2009 and 2018. While the ruling-ANC called for calm, several organisations, including Corruption Watch, Amnesty Intentional, and others, welcomed the sentence, saying that it augured well for the rule of law in South Africa.
Zuma’s daughter Dudu Zuma-Sambudla took to social media, writing on that her Dad was in high spirits and had no fear serving his sentence closer to home in Nkandla.
But the Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMWA), which earlier this month was disbanded by the ANC, said in a statement that Zuma gave his all for democracy and that it opposed the decision to imprison him, warning that it would ask Zuma to defy the court order.
Veteran leader and Zuma-acolyte Carl Niehaus told national broadcaster the SABC yesterday that said people should protest and “not allow President Jacob Zuma to be arrested and imprisoned”.
Zuma has ducked and dived before the country’s court most of his political life as president. In March he appeared twice before the Zondo Commission investigating state capture and corruption but twice refuse to answer questions put to him. During his second appearance he left the court without the permission of the court’s head, Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo. In terms of the country’s laws, this was an offence, resulting in the Constitutional Court decision.
Reading out the judgment, Khampepe said: “Never before has the Constitutional Court been subject to the kinds of attack launched by Mr Zuma”.
“It is the lofty and lonely work of the judiciary to uphold the Constitution at any and all cost,” said Khampepe, adding that not only is 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,`’ Khampepe said.
While upholding the Constitution is described by Khampepe as a lonely task, it remains to be seen whether Zuma, without any prospect of appealing the Constitutional Court ruling, willingly swop his freedom for a lonely cell by the time the deadline arrives.
Zuma’s daughter Dudu Zuma-Sambudla took to social media, writing on that her Dad was in high spirits and had no fear serving his sentence closer to home in Nkandla.
Zuma has ducked and dived before the country’s court most of his political life as president. In March he appeared twice before the Zondo Commission investigating state capture and corruption but twice refuse.
