JZ misses deadline to stop prosecution
Hulley must pay back money – EFF
Former president Jacob Zuma has missed his own deadline to challenge the decision that he face prosecution over corruption charges.
Zuma’s failure to meet yesterday’s deadline comes as the EFF turned up the heat on his lawyers by demanding attorney Michael Hulley be ordered to pay back millions in taxpayers’ money already spent on Zuma’s legal fees.
EFF leader Julius Malema said the party was challenging a decision by the State Attorney “to pay unlimited amounts of public money to a private attorneys’ firm to perform and procure legal and related services for a politician facing charges of corruption and other charges”.
“It has emerged that payments in excess of R32-million have been made so far‚ and more payments are expected to be made in the future‚” Malema said.
He said it was apparent that the charges Zuma stood accused of had nothing to do with his official functions and‚ therefore‚ he wasn’t entitled to state funding of his defence.
Malema further argued that Zuma’s multimillion-rand legal funding violated the principle of equality before the law‚ as ordinary people would never have been able to spend 12 years fighting the state with unlimited taxpayers’ money.
The National Prosecuting Authority has confirmed that Zuma’s lawyers did not meet their own deadline to file a review of National Director of Public Prosecutions Shaun Abrahams’ decision to pursue the corruption case against the former president.
Zuma’s legal team indicated that they would challenge Abrahams’ decision on the basis that it was irrational and unlawful, but they still had not done so before the deadline.
The EFF is now seeking an order that both Zuma and Hulley pay back the money spent on the former president’s legal costs within six months – plus interest.