‘Zuma must go back to jail’

JOHANNESBURG. – The Constitutional Court has dismissed the Department of Correctional Services’ application for leave to appeal a Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) ruling that former president Jacob Zuma must go back to prison.

In the ruling handed down yesterday, the apex court found the department’s appeal “bears no reasonable prospect of success” and dismissed the application with costs.

Zuma missed the deadline to appeal the SCA ruling but filed an application for leave to intervene.

The apex court dismissed this, also with costs, as there would not be an appeal.

Zuma was jailed in July 2021 for 15 months for contempt of the Constitutional Court after he refused to obey an order to appear before the Zondo Commission.

However, hardly two months later, he was released on medical parole after the then-national commissioner of correctional services, Arthur Fraser, overruled the Medical Parole Advisory Board’s (MPAB) recommendation that the former president did not qualify for it. The DA, AfriForum and Helen Suzman Foundation asked the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria to review Fraser’s decision and set it aside.

Judge Elias Matojane found the decision was unlawful.

He ordered that Zuma should return to prison to complete the 15-month sentence.

In December 2021, Matojane found an error of law influenced Fraser into believing he was entitled to grant medical parole to Zuma, when the MPAB found the former president did not meet the necessary requirements. Matojane said Zuma’s return to prison would “not impact him unfairly, as there is no suggestion that he is an innocent party”.

The judge added the former president had defied the Zondo Commission, judiciary, and rule of law, and was resolute in his refusal to participate in the commission’s proceedings.

Matojane also stated Zuma continued to “attack the Constitutional Court while unlawfully benefitting from a lesser punishment than what the Constitutional Court has imposed”. – News24.com