ZUMA JUDGMENT A WARNING TO FUTURE LEADERS

FORMER president Jacob Zuma has finally run out of runway.

After years spent undermining the rule of law, while hollowing out law enforcement agencies through Machiavellian strategies, the Constitutional Court dealt a decisive blow to his intransigence.

Yesterday, a majority of the court’s justices ordered that Zuma be jailed for 15 months over his failure to comply with its order forcing him to appear before the Judicial Commission of Inquiry Into Allegations of State Capture (Zondo Commission) earlier this year.

And as Justice Sisi Khampepe, who read the majority judgment, said, Zuma had left the court no other choice.

“The only appropriate sanction is a direct, unsuspended order of imprisonment. The alternative is to effectively sentence the legitimacy of the judiciary to inevitable decay,” read Justice Khampepe.

Zuma’s defiance, at the time, would have seemed appropriate considering his pending trial for fraud and corruption over the Arms Deal at the Pietermaritzburg High Court.

His testimony in front of the Zondo Commission would have been admissible as evidence in his fraud and corruption trial, and that may have motivated him to defy the Constitutional Court.

This judgment marks a watershed for the administration of justice because once again the Constitutional Court has affirmed itself as the apex court, and the upholder of our constitutional values. Zuma’s supporters will invariably delve into whataboutisms, but no one else but the former president was called to account.

We have numerous examples of what happens when leaders defy the rule of law.

Inevitably countries descend into anarchy, and those who suffer the most are ordinary citizens who can’t depend on the rule of law to uphold their rights.

Zuma, and his supporters, might feel that he is being unfairly targeted, but history has shown that (to quote Justice Khampepe) his recalcitrance has brought us here.

Our current and future leaders should take heed of this judgment because ultimately they have to uphold the rule of law, and will be held to account.