Road to reinstatement of charges
FORMER president Jacob Zuma is no stranger to South Africa’s courts of law, especially those dealing with criminal matters.
Yesterday, the National Director of Public Prosecutions, advocate Shaun Abrahams, reinstated 18 criminal charges against Zuma, which could finally turn to reality his oft-repeated call, “Let me have my day in court”.
While Zuma was charged in 1963 and sentenced to 10 years on Robben Island, his post-apartheid legal woes began in June 2005, a few days after Judge Hilary Squires, in the Durban High Court, made a damning ruling against Zuma’s financial adviser, Schabir Shaik.
Shaik was found guilty on two counts of fraud and corruption.
In August 2005, the Scorpions raided Zuma’s two homes, in Johannesburg and Nkandla, as well as the offices of his lawyer in Durban and Johannesburg.
Four months later, Zuma was snuck into the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court to be formally charged with rape. His accuser, Fezeka Ntsukela Kuzwayo, was the daughter of a friend of Zuma, a fellow member of Umkhonto weSizwe.
His maiden court appearance did not happen without drama. Initially, members of the Scorpions and Zuma’s bodyguards were reportedly involved in a serious altercation involving guns.
After wrangling and resistance, which lasted for days, Zuma finally agreed to appear in court. The trial against him began in the Johannesburg High Court on March 6, 2006, but he was acquitted two months later. In that judgment, delivered on May 8, 2006, Judge Willem van der Merwe had harsh words against Zuma despite acquitting him.
He told him it was “totally unacceptable” for him to have unprotected sex with a woman who was not one of his partners, especially knowing she was HIV-positive.
It was after that ruling that Zuma consolidated his control over the ANC. He was elected ANC president on December 18, 2007, propelled by an “unstoppable tsunami” which primarily consisted of a coalition of the wounded – former Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, SACP boss Blade Nzimande along with those whose fortunes had waned under Thabo Mbeki.
Exactly 10 days later, Zuma was officially charged with 18 counts ranging from corruption, racketeering and money laundering to multiple counts of fraud. In September 2008, Zuma approached the Durban High Court and made an application to have all 18 charges against him dismissed.
On September 12, 2008 Judge Chris Nicholson agreed with Zuma and endorsed his views of a political conspiracy against him. During the same month, the ANC recalled Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe took over as the country’s president. In January 2009, the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) set aside Nicholson’s ruling. This prompted Zuma to approach the NPA again, and he raised similar arguments he made to Nicholson.
In February, he supplied the then-NPA acting head Mokotedi Mpshe with records of a conversation between former NPA head Bulelani Ngcuka and former Scorpions head Leonard McCarthy to justify his claim of a conspiracy against him. Two months later, Mpshe withdrew the criminal charges against him on April 6, 2009.
Mpshe’s decision was further endorsed by the Durban High Court on April 7, 2009. The ruling irked the DA. The DA had to spend more than R10 million to have that April 2009 ruling overturned.
Their eight-year battle paid off in September last year, when the SCA ruled that Mpshe used a wrong statute to withdraw the charges against Zuma.
The SCA ordered the reinstatement of the charges against Zuma. After that ruling, Zuma was again offered an opportunity to make representations to the NPA and the deadline was set for November 30 last year. It was later extended to January 31 this year.
Yesterday, NPA head Abrahams decided to reinstate charges against him.