Chickens come home to roost

If Jacob Zuma were wandering around the poultry coop on his Nkandla homestead today, he might do well to stop and listen for the other rustling, of legal wings, as the chickens come home to roost on state capture. Yesterday, the Constitutional Court removed another – perhaps the last one? – of his barriers to prevent himself from standing before the country and answering to the horrendous tales of looting and hijacking of state resources which have been emerging at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture.

Justice Chris Jafta said Zuma was not entitled to “remain silent” when questioned by the commission. This was a right, Jafta reminded everyone, which applies to an accused person and not to a witness.

So, Zuma will, finally, be forced to speak. And that is really what he has been so afraid of all along. Because he will either have to give detailed responses or, like his alleged comrade-in-plunder, former South African Airways chair Dudu Myeni, he will have to say something like: “I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that it may incriminate me…”

He will, in merely saying that, be tacitly acknowledging that there is a case to answer which, in the minds of ordinary people, if not lawyers, is the next best thing to an admission of guilt. And given the way Myeni and other witnesses were peppered with questions they couldn’t, or wouldn’t answer, we can look forward to Zuma having to say, repeatedly, that he won’t comment because it could have legal repercussions for him.

No doubt, the evidence leaders at the commission will lay out a whole series of dots which Zuma may refuse to join, but which those watching will do so with alacrity.

All of those refusals to answer will go into the record and, hopefully, the prosecution’s criminal case…