AFRICAN MIRROR REPORTER
FORMER President Jacob Zuma is in court today in a bid to stay out of jail.
Zuma and his lawyers are expected in the Maritzburg High Court where an application for the stay of a warrant of detention will be heard. Zuma want the sentence to be held on abeyance until the Constitutional Court hears his application for the 15 month sentence imposed on him to be rescinded.
Today’s court appearance comes 24 hours after Police Minister Bheki Cele revealed that there were more than 100 people armed with guns among the thousands who attended the rally of support to former President Jacob Zuma and were bent on provoking the police to start violence.
Cele said the police deployed to Zuma’s home in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal, exercised restraint in the face of provocation and violations of the law, which include the firing of guns into the air, and promised that the SAPS will act.
The Minister said those armed came from men’s hostels around Durban.
“We have learnt lessons through Marikana (Massacre). We had 20 cameras from the SAPS (recording the event). That data is with us. We will be dealing with that matter and we are happy that no woman or child died, which could have easily happened,” Cele said.
He said extra detectives have been deployed to work on the information collected at Nkandla. Arrests should be expected, he said.
Zuma yesterday said would go to jail “as early as today”, but talked out of it by his family and comrades.
Zuma addressed the media at the end of the weekend where thousands of his supporters descended on his home in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal in a show of support.
Zuma said: “If it was up to me, I would go to jail as early as today, whether I come out alive or not, but I have never operated as an individual. I am therefore guided by the view of my family and comrades.” Zuma declined to speak out against the violation of the law by his supporters who, among others, fired shots and violated COVID-19 regulations. He described a question as “unhelpful” and said: “The reaction of the people tells the story. They are not happy with what the court has done and it is their own reaction that they made, which I think tells all of us that we must do things correctly and not provoke people.”
Zuma’s comments came a day after he was handed a temporary stay-out-of-prison card by the Constitutional Court, which agreed to hear his application for a rescission of the 15- month prison sentence.
Zuma also told local traditional leaders gathered at the Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal home that he had done nothing wrong. The traditional leaders were part of a group of his supporters that descended on Nkandla in a show of support.
Zuma threatened to reveal secrets and warned that there would be instability in South Africa.
Speaking in isiZulu, he said. “I don’t know what I have done wrong. I just heard them responding to the political points I made. They spoke politics. My lawyers are going to write to them and inform them that the sentence is wrong. I don’t know where that has ended. Where it is going to be tough is when they say I must go to jail when I have done nothing. And that I should just walk (into prison),” he said, to an acknowledgment from those gathered.
Zuma did not have to report to jail after the Constitutional Court agreed to hear his application for his sentence to be rescinded and set July 12 as the date of the hearing.
Zuma’s freedom depends on an application, which he has made to the Maritzburg High Court, for a stay of execution of the warrant of detention, which was signed by Constitutional Judge Sisi Khampepe committing him to start his sentence at the Westville Prison in Durban.
The judicial Commission into State Capture, chaired by Acting-Chief Justice Zondo, has filed its opposition Zuma’s application to have his 15-month jail sentence set aside.
In his affidavit, Professor Itumeleng Mosala, the secretary of the commission said the Maritzburg High Court, where Zuma submitted his application did not have the jurisdiction to hear the matter.
Mosala said Zuma has failed to satisfy the test for a rescission of the Constitutional Court decision.
“Thirdly, understanding this application within the context of its full factual history reveals that it (the application) is a continuation of the pattern of abuse by the applicant of the court process. Courts should not entertain such abuse any longer. Finally, the applicant does not satisfy the requirements for an interim interdict,” Mosala said.
In an application for a rescission of the 15-month prison term handed down by the Constitutional Court, Zuma (79), disclosed that he suffered from an ailment that requires constant and intense therapy and said he would be at risk of contracting COVID-19 behind bars.
He said he was not revealing his medical condition to avoid jail.
“I disclose this not to avoid imprisonment, which I have gladly faced before in my life for conscientious reasons, but to indicate the gravity of the threat that an unconstitutional order of summary direct imprisonment creates. In the event that the court is persuaded that I should be given an opportunity to deal with the issue of direct imprisonment, my state of health would also form part of the many reasons why I should not be imprisoned, more particularly in the current context of a deadly pandemic to which people in my circumstance are particularly vulnerable and the highest risk.
“Given my own unstable state of health and that is my physical life that the incarceration order threatens, I believe I am entitled to a court that will examine, with dispassionate interest but a keen sense of judicial duty and independence, whether this judgment represents the law on contempt of court orders in a constitutional democracy that is undergirded by the Constitution whose foundational values are human dignity, equality, ubuntu and the advancement of human rights. Or whether, as I seek to assert, it is underlined by rescindable errors and omissions. In the present circumstances, it is the right to life itself which may be at stake. It is, therefore, no exaggeration to label mine as cruel and degrading punishment.”
Explaining why he did not apply to interdict the Zondo Commission after it won an order that compelled him to testify, the former president said non-action was not because of disdain but because he did not have the money to launch that legal action. This was because his legal funding by the government has been stopped.
Zuma also denied that he had walked out of the Zondo Commission after his application for the recusal of the chairperson, Deputy Judge President Raymond Zondo, was dismissed. He said he left so that he could take his medication.
