AFRICAN MIRROR REPORTER
FIVE Supreme Court of Appeal judges have come down hard on former President Jacob Zuma, censuring for his baseless attacks on the judiciary.
In a judgement, written by Judge Poonan JA and supported by Judges Dambuza, Makgoka, Schippers JJA and Gorven AJA, the judges had some harsh words for the ex-ANC president.
In addition to ordering Zuma to pay back between R16 and R25-million in legal fees, the judges punished Zuma for his attacks on Gauteng Deputy Judge President Ledwaba and judges J Meyer J and Kubushi. The three judges handed down the decision that the state attorney was wrong to fund the private legal costs of Zuma. Zuma appealed their decision and the SCA judges dismissed his appeal and agreed with the Gauteng High Court that funding Zuma’s legal fees when he was cited in his private capacity was unlawful, unconstitutional and invalid.
On Zuma’s attacks on the judiciary, the judges found that Zuma has not presented any factual basis to support the allegations that he made against the three Gauteng judges.
The allegations that Zuma made in his application for leave to appeal were that:
- The court essentially gave more weight to the political interests of the political parties – the Democratic Alliance and the Economic Freedom Fighters – involved than advancing his constitutional rights.
- The court’s findings would have been different, if it had been acting ‘fairly and without bias’
- The court, in having accepted the submission that he should approach the Legal Aid Board if he could not afford private representation, demonstrated ‘further evidence of bias’
- The court was ‘hell-bent on finding against him on any point possible.
- He ‘has become accustomed to its trend of punishing me with costs all the time’.
This is what the judges said in their decision.
“However, nowhere was any factual foundation laid for any of those allegations. Despite having been challenged by the EFF in its answering affidavit to withdraw these unwarranted and scandalous allegations levelled, not just against the court below, but the judiciary at large, Mr Zuma did not do so. What is more, even after further opportunity for reflection, the stance was persisted with in the appeal. From the bar in this Court, there was an attempt to either downplay or justify the allegations as ‘robust criticism’.
“The contention, absent any factual foundation, that all three judges who heard the matter had left their judicial station, scandalises the court. If true, that all three either independently of each other, or worse still acting in concert, would have renounced their judicial impartiality is a most serious allegation. Imputing bias to a judicial officer should not lightly be made. Nor, should the imputation of a political motive. This is not to suggest that courts are immune from criticism, even robust criticism for that matter. But, the criticism encountered here falls outside acceptable bounds.”
“There is nothing on the record to sustain the inference that the presiding judges in this matter (or at a more generalised level in other matters involving Mr Zuma) were biased or that they were not open-minded, impartial or fair. The allegations were made with a reckless disregard for the truth and persisted during the argument. They ought not to have been made at all. But, having been made, they ought, in response to the invitation from the EFF, to have been retracted. To have persisted in the unjustified criticism of not just the high court, but more generally the judiciary is plainly deserving of censure. Little wonder then that the EFF submits that Mr Zuma should be penalised with a punitive costs order as a mark of this Court’s displeasure and to vindicate the integrity of the high court and the judiciary. A submission, for the reasons given, with which I am in agreement.”
