Zuma launches lastditch bid to halt trial
Former president Jacob Zuma made a last-ditch attempt on Thursday to stop his corruption trial going ahead. Zuma’s lawyers launched a Constitutional Court challenge to the dismissal by the high court in Pietermaritzburg of his application for a permanent stay of prosecution.
Former president Jacob Zuma made a last-ditch attempt on Thursday to stop his corruption trial going ahead.
Zuma’s lawyers launched a Constitutional Court challenge to the dismissal by the high court in Pietermaritzburg of his application for a permanent stay of prosecution.
He argues that three high court judges failed to address “constitutional violations” he suffered at the hands of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), and insists he has a “reasonable prospect of success” of convincing the Constitutional Court of his appeal arguments.
Zuma contends that the conduct of the NPA was “so egregious” in its deviation from the provisions of the constitution and prosecutorial laws and policies that “it should be disqualified from performing my prosecution”. He continues to insist that he has no prospect of receiving a fair trial if he is prosecuted by the NPA.
Three high court judges last year dismissed Zuma’s arguments that his prosecution wa tainted fatally by undue delay, prosecutorial misconduct and political interference, and found that the “seriousness of the offences that Mr Zuma is facing far outweighs any prejudice which he claims he will suffer if the trial proceeds”.
The court agreed with the NPA’s argument that Zuma could raise his complaints during his criminal trial, rather than attempt to use them to avoid that trial altogether.
More than two weeks ago, the Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed Zuma’s attempt to overturn the high court’s decision, after finding that his arguments did not have any reasonable prospect of success.
That decision would have cleared the way for Zuma to go on trial as soon as May this year.
But Zuma now argues in court papers that SA’s highest court should hear his appeal because of “constitutional violations” committed by the NPA in the 15-year-old case against him.
Zuma stands accused of receiving hundreds of payments totalling more than R4m from his former financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, in exchange for his support and promotion of Shaik’s business interests.
Shaik was convicted in 2005 of corrupting Zuma and facilitating a R500,000-a-year bribe for him from French arms company Thales, in exchange for Zuma’s “political protection” from any possible investigation of the controversial multibillion-rand arms deal.
Zuma remains adamant that he should have been tried with Shaik in 2003, and has accused then NPA head Bulelani Ngcuka of deliberately choosing not to charge him in order to thwart his chances of winning leadership of the ANC. He insists the state used Shaik’s trial as a “dry run” for his prosecution, and effectively denied him the right to defend himself.
He further argues that the Pietermaritzburg high court “failed dismally to conduct an evaluation of the conduct and decisions of the NPA from the era of Ngcuka to [former NPA head Shaun] Abrahams”.
According to Zuma, it is “not only in the interests of justice” that the Constitutional Court should hear his appeal but also because it “accords with the proper administration of justice under our constitutional dispensation”.
Zuma is due back at the Pietermaritzburg high court on May 6. He did not attend his last court hearing in February, his lawyers said, because he was seeking medical treatment for an unspecified “serious condition” overseas.
High court judge Dhaya Pillay did not accept an alleged sick note provided by Zuma’s legal team as acceptable evidence of his condition, and issued a warrant of arrest against him, which was suspended until his appearance in May.