Zuma may go back to jail after ConCourt refuses to hear correctional services’ appeal

News24

• The Constitutional Court did not grant the Department of Correctional Services leave to appeal the Supreme Court of Appeal‘s (SCA) decision that former president Jacob Zuma must go back to jail.
• The SCA upheld the High Court ruling that former prison boss Arthur Fraser‘s decision to grant Zuma medical parole was unlawful.
• Zuma received a 15-month sentence for defying the Constitutional Court‘s order to appear before the Zondo Commission, but only served two months before Fraser released him.

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 on Thursday, 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”.

He granted Zuma and the department leave to appeal his ruling, and they took the matter to the SCA.

But in a unanimous judgment written by Judge Tati Makgoka, the SCA agreed with the High Court that Fraser’s decision was unlawful and unconstitutional.

This meant Zuma “has not finished serving his sentence” for contempt of the Constitutional Court, the SCA found.

It said:

“It is a matter to be considered by the commissioner [Makgothi Thobakgale]. If he is empowered by law to do so, the commissioner might take that period into account in determining any application or grounds for release.”

After the Constitutional Court’s decision was handed down, the department said in a statement it was “studying the Constitutional Court judgment for the review application in relation to the medical parole placement for the former president, Mr Jacob Zuma”.

“DCS [Department of Correctional Services] is seeking legal advice and will comment further in due course,” the statement read.

JG Zuma Foundation spokesperson EFF MP Mzwanele Manyi referred all enquiries on the ruling to the department.

“It is not my intention to hijack the DCS space in the public discourse,” he said in a message to the media.

In November last year, when asked at a media briefing about his health, Zuma reportedly responded: “What’s wrong with the health, just tell me, what’s wrong with the health? Looking at me, am I in the bed lying in a hospital?”

Last week, he visited Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, where he gave a “special address” to the first African Voluntary Carbon Credits Market Forum and posed with a giant cheque for a donation of two million “emission reduction units”.

Zuma was representing an organisation called the Africa Belarus Trade Organisation, on whose board he serves.

The former president was represented by advocate Dali Mpofu SC in this court case.

Also on Thursday, the Constitutional Court ruled against another of Mpofu’s clients, when it upheld President Cyril Ramaphosa’s suspension of Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane.