COURT TO ISSUE JUDGMENT IN ZUMA, DOWNER MATTER

Former president Jacob Zuma will know today if his continued bid to privately prosecute senior National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) senior prosecutor Advocate Billy Downer will be put on ice, permanently.

Downer, who is the lead prosecutor in the arms deal criminal case against Zuma, wants the court to remove Zuma’s private prosecution case against him from the court’s roll, while the former president is demanding that the matter remains.

A decision to remove the case from the court roll will pave the way for the resumption of the arms deal trial in which Zuma is facing corruption and fraud charges.

The Pietermaritzburg High Court, which last week heard arguments from Zuma’s legal team and that of the NPA representing Downer, is set to deliver judgment on the matter today.

The private prosecution case against Downer — whom Zuma had accused of leaking his medical records — has been on the court’s roll despite the former president having been interdicted from taking any steps to prosecute Downer.

Further, the courts set aside the summons which Zuma had served on Downer as part of the private prosecution processes.

Zuma had charged Downer alongside journalist Karyn Maughan, who he accused of illegally being in possession of his medical records.

The former president’s legal team last week told the Pietermaritzburg High Court that the private prosecution matter could only be removed from the court’s roll once Zuma had taken all the previous court rulings against him to the Constitutional Court for review.

Zuma, who had been the ANC’s president for a decade, raised eyebrows in December when he announced that he would vote and campaign for the ruling party’s splinter organisation – the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP).

Yesterday, the Electoral Commission of South African confirmed that Zuma was now the official leader of the MKP.

Scores of MKP supporters are expected to gather outside the Pietermaritzburg High Court tomorrow to lend Zuma support.