What led to JZ’s change of heart?
The speed of it was dizzying, even for those in the inner circle.
“In the past few days the train has been moving too fast, almost leaving us behind,” said advocate William Mokhari, on behalf of Police Minister Nathi Nhleko.
The Economic Freedom Fighters were also left puzzled. “What we have is persistent conduct in breach of the Constitution for almost two years, and no explanation for it,” said their advocate, Wim Trengove.
“If the president had come forward today and said: ‘I am sorry: I had bad legal advice, I acted in accordance to the legal advice I had all along, and it was an error in good faith,’ that would have been a different matter. But you simply have silence.”
Perhaps, after almost two years of thinking otherwise, President Jacob Zuma had been convinced of the error of his ways when Corruption Watch filed papers in the matter just days before the hearing, Trengove joked.
The explanation, advocate Jeremy Gauntlett told the court on behalf of Zuma, was quite simple.
Up to October 2015 there was legitimate legal confusion about the powers of the public protector. When the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled four months ago (in a case relating to SABC chief Hlaudi Motsoeneng) that Madonsela’s findings are binding, that was the end of that.
Why, then, did Zuma refer to the remedial action Madonsela asked of him as “recommendations” as recently as last week? “That might have been through nostalgia or clerical inconsistency,” Gauntlett said.
That answer may explain a lingering scepticism, of which he complained: “Here, there is a continued suspicion that what the president is in some way proposing would have a gap here or entail a duck there.
“We accept that in the present case what [Madonsela] directed would be administrative action, which would stand and bind unless reviewed.
“I stress her words ‘in the present case’, because our concern is that one must not glibly equate what the public protector does as always entailing administrative action,” Gauntlett said.
“She may be asked to look into particular matters where she comes out with an advisory report and she says she’s horrified by what she’s seen in certain respects, and she would wonder if the department of education in Mpumalanga should not look at this or do the other. No suggested teeth at all.” —