NDPP had ‘long taken’ a decision on Zuma
Abrahams even appointed a head prosecutor for case, his counsel says
UNDER-FIRE National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) Shaun Abrahams has long taken a decision to prosecute former president Jacob Zuma and is now only studying his representations on why he should not be charged.
This was revealed by Abrahams’s counsel, Hilton Epstein, during arguments in the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) boss’s Constitutional Court application for leave to appeal the December high court judgment in Pretoria declaring his appointment as NDPP unlawful and setting it aside.
Epstein told the apex court that Abrahams took the decision in September last year when he realised his Supreme Court of Appeal challenge of the high court finding, that dropping of charges against Zuma was irrational, would fail.
According to Epstein, Abrahams wrote to acting Hawks head Yolisa Matakata requesting the docket for the fraud, corruption, racketeering and tax evasion charges Zuma faces, the list of witnesses and state of the investigation.
He said Abrahams had even appointed KwaZulu-Natal director of public prosecutions, Moipone Noko, as the lead prosecutor in the matter and also included prosecutor Billy Downer, who was part of the original prosecution team. “This case is about one person,” said Epstein.
He offered solutions for the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (Casac), which does not want Abrahams to be the NDPP deciding on the reinstatement of the charges against Zuma.
“If that is the only reason for him to go, then in terms of section 23 of the NPA Act, any deputy NDPP can take the decision,” he said.
The act allows any of the four deputy NDPPs to exercise or perform any of the powers, duties and functions of the NDPP.
Epstein said his client could delegate the decision and that the act also allowed any deputy NDPP to take over the NDPP’s functions if, for any reason, the NDPP was unable to perform his or her functions.
However, Casac’s counsel, Geoff Budlender, said it was not in the interests of justice for Abrahams to decide on whether or not to prosecute Zuma before the Constitutional Court had delivered its judgment on the matter.
He said Abrahams was refusing to consider Casac’s request and had announced that a decision had already been taken.
Abrahams would announce his decision on March 15.
Matthew Chaskalson, representing Corruption Watch, told the court that Abrahams’s predecessor, Mxolisi Nxasana, was entitled to just over R34 000 as a pension payout after he left office in June 2015, not the R17.3 million Zuma paid him. Yesterday, Nxasana said he was “prepared to go back to work as early as today (Wednesday)” and insisted he had left the NPA when he was still doing a good job.
“I still get a lot of calls and messages from staff (at the NPA) that they are waiting for me (to return). I was under tremendous pressure but I didn’t really succumb to pressure,” Nxasana said.
The former KwaZulu-Natal Law Society president also disputed acting Constitutional Court Justice Azhar Cachalia’s statement that he would be disqualified to make decision on whether or not to prosecute Zuma as he had previously called the former head of state an “utter liar”, which could lead to accusations of bias.
Nxasana said he still believed that what Zuma told the high court under oath was not true and that he was backed by evidence and correspondence.
Corruption Watch and Freedom Under Law, which brought the matter that led to the high court declaring Abrahams’s appointment unlawful, want Nxasana reinstated.
Casac asked the Constitutional Court to confirm the high court orders declaring sections of the NPA Act unconstitutional.
Judgment was reserved.