Daily Dispatch
No wiggle room for NPA
PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma wants to make further representations about why he should not again be charged with 783 charges of fraud, racketeering, money laundering and corruption.
Making further representations seems bizarre in the extreme after both the National Prosecuting Authority and his own senior counsel last week conceded in court that it had been irrational and wrong in 2009 for the then acting director of public prosecutions Mokotedi Mpshe to drop the charges.
Many see it as yet another attempt to delay the day in court that Zuma claimed a decade ago to be so eager to have.
But then Zuma has large vested interests in not being charged. It would be simply untenable for a sitting president to be fighting so many serious criminal charges. However, if he resigned or was removed he would lose the power to stop the state capture related chickens from coming home to roost. Being charged would be the beginning of an ignoble – and many would say a much deserved – end to a disgraceful presidency.
Zuma nevertheless, like any potential accused, enjoys the right at any point to make representations on why he should not be charged. In light of the many and varied concessions he was constrained to make in the Supreme Court of Appeal, it seems incomprehensible that anything he could possibly say at this point would avert the inevitable reinstatement of the charges.
And while he may be free to exercise his right, the contradiction between the President’s words and actions is impossible to ignore. So to is the impression that the system is being abused – and at immense cost to the taxpayer.
The public should be able to expect NPA boss Shaun Abrahams to act quickly, rationally, honestly and procedurally in taking a decision after the representations have been made. Unfortunately he has shown himself to be anything but impartial or professional. His determination to file charges against former finance minister Pravin Gordhan on clearly contrived evidence combined with his simultaneous aversion to recharging Zuma – against whom the courts have found there is plenty of prima facie evidence – does not inspire confidence in his independence or judgment.
In making his decision, Abrahams must consider the Constitutional Court’s admonition that there is a duty on the state to lead by example. In this finding, the ConCourt quoted US Supreme Court judge Louis Brandeis: “In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperilled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously . . . Government is the potent, omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example . . . If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.”
If the NPA has conceded it was wrong to drop the charges, it seems obvious that they should be reinstated. NPA spokesman Luvuyo Mfaku said the NPA was not embarrassed by its concession. But it should be.
And it should ensure it avoids further embarrassment by doing the principled and ethical thing: charging the president.