Jacob Zuma’s medical parole needs to be reviewed

The long arm of state capture seems to have stretched outrageously and brazenly from former president Jacob Zuma’s prison cell into the heart of government. National commissioner of correctional services Arthur Fraser has openly admitted to having overruled the decision by the medical parole advisory board not to grant Zuma parole. The board cited the grounds that his medical condition was stable and consists of medical doctors with the expertise to pass judgment on the matter, unlike Fraser. His action means that Zuma will be released from prison after serving less than two months of the 15month jail term imposed by the Constitutional Court for contempt of court after he failed to appear before the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture.

Even as Zuma entered the prison gates there were public mutterings that he would not be there very long and that as with former financial adviser Schabir Shaik in 2009 he would soon be on the golf course or supping with friends at his Nkandla homestead. And so it has turned out. Zuma has once again wiggled his way out of legal processes.

While other prison inmates have their medical parole applications routinely turned down, he received special treatment, adding to public cynicism that there is one law for the politically powerful and another for the rest of us and deepening the yawning lack of trust in our politicians.

Zuma entered hospital on August 6 for medical observation for what the foundation that shares his name said was his normal annual check-up, and later underwent a surgical procedure, which the department of correctional services said would be followed by others. We are in the dark about the details of his medical condition.

Zuma was still in hospital when he was granted medical parole on September 5, in terms of which he can be discharged from hospital and treated at home under correctional services supervision.

Opposition parties were rightly enraged. What was an initial suspicion that Fraser had used his discretion to overrule the medical parole board in granting Zuma his parole turned out to be correct, disclosed by none other than Fraser himself in an SABC interview.

This has all the hallmarks of mutual back-scratching between Fraser and Zuma so well captured by newspaper cartoonists. Fraser’s doffing of his cap to his former boss was one of his last decisive acts as national commissioner because his contract expires at the end of September and will not be renewed.

Fraser was formerly director-general of the State Security Agency (SSA) having been appointed during the Zuma presidency. He was transferred to correctional services in 2018.

The investigation of the high-level review panel into SA’s intelligence service appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa in June 2018 and headed by Sydney Mufamadi pointed to widespread abuse of state resources by the agency in support of political factions in the governing ANC for more than a decade. The report said the private intelligence community had been turned into a “private resource to serve the political and personal interests of particular individuals”.

Giving evidence to the Zondo commission, Mufamadi said the panel had heard evidence from an SSA agent that Zuma was the beneficiary of millions of rand from the agency’s special operations unit between 2015 and 2017 with the amount reaching R4.5m in 2016/2017. This was under Fraser’s watch.

So the DA is spot on to take steps to launch a court application to get hold of the record of decision that led to the granting of Zuma’s medical parole and to have it reviewed. Fraser insists that it was lawful and that procedures were correctly followed.

The review request would seek to determine whether the correct process was followed. This process requires obtaining a full medical report by independent doctors over and above that of Zuma’s own doctors. Such a report would need to be presented to the parole board and the relevant doctors, and only then can the commissioner use his discretion to override the decision.

As DA leader John Steenhuisen says, it is crucial that this process is not manipulated for personal or political gain. Transparency about the process is key to determine whether Fraser acted lawfully or not. We rely on the courts to be enlightened.

AS ZUMA ENTERED PRISON THERE WERE MUTTERINGS HE WOULD NOT BE THERE VERY LONG. AND SO IT HAS TURNED OUT