Now JZ must take on the Concourt
FORMER president Jacob Zuma will attempt, tomorrow, to shift the country’s legal parameters to another level with his application to the Constitutional Court to rescind its previous order, which found him guilty of contempt and sentenced to 15 months of imprisonment. Some of the respondents in the matter believe Zuma’s argument had no legal basis and was just another show of defiance for the rule of law and labelled him a “constitutional delinquent”.
The order, which ultimately relates to Zuma's refusal to appear at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, headed by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, took effect on Wednesday.
Zuma handed himself over to police and was incarcerated at the Estcourt Correctional Facility, in Kwazulu-natal.
In his application, he accused Justice Zondo of abandoning his decision to report him to police for ditching the commission of inquiry into state capture. Zuma said the commission failed to inform the Constitutional Court that he has a health condition, which was relevant to his non-appearance before its chairperson Justice Zondo, who had agreed to receive a medical report from his medical team and even meet them.
Had this honourable court been aware of the exact nature and extent of the applicant’s (Zuma’s) medical condition(s), it may have come to a different decision,” read Zuma’s heads of argument. Zuma said Justice Zondo publicly announced in November that he would invoke his powers under the Commissions Act to report his alleged conduct as a criminal offence to the SA Police Service.
This was after Zuma walked out of the commission after Justice Zondo ruled against the former president in his bid to have him (Justice Zondo) recuse himself from hearing his evidence.
”That would be consistent with the procedure prescribed in the Commissions Act which is the controlling statute for commissions of inquiry,” reads the heads of argument.
Zuma said instead of complying with his rulings in relation to his non-appearance at the commission in terms of the Commissions Act, Zondo invoked an extraordinary summary procedure for the enforcement of the commission’s summons but with no reference to the Act, which is the subsidiary legislation which governs his Commission. Zondo opted for direct access to the Constitutional Court to compel him to appear even before resolving the issue of whether he (Zondo) was conflicted or not, was decided in Zuma’s high court application, the former statesman said.
He claimed that Zondo did not disclose to the Concourt his reasons for abandoning his own ruling to deal with Zuma’s non-appearance at the commission ”This in itself is prima facie unlawful and irrational,” said Zuma.
He said Zondo made the bold move and gambled with an urgent, direct access application to the apex court to obtain “unprecedented” relief. “Seemingly, a lot more is at play. For now, however, the review and recusal applications are still pending in our court system. Nothing more therefore needs to be said on this score,” Zuma stated.
In response, Professor Itumeleng Mosala, the Commission’s secretary, deposed an affidavit and deemed Zuma’s rescission application as falling short of legal requirements, riddled with falsehoods, factual misrepresentations and distortions of the law.