The South African Constitutional court upholds Supreme Court’s decision
The South African Constitutional court on Thursday dealt the former president Zuma another blow when it dismissed the DCS’ leave to appeal a Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA), which wanted to appeal the ruling that effectively sent the former president back to prison to finish his sentence, ruling that he must go back to prison.
The ConCourt found the department’s appeal “bears no reasonable prospect of success” and dismissed the application with costs. The apex court also dismissed Zuma’s application for leave to intervene with costs after he missed the deadline to appeal the Supreme Court of Appeal ruling.
His jailing sparked the July 2021 unrest that saw KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng businesses looted and burned, and over 350 people killed. Jacob was jailed for 15 months for contempt of the Constitutional Court after he refused to obey an order to appear before the Zondo Commission.
Hardly two months later after Jacob Zuma was arrested, 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 and ordered that he 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 the former President, when the MPAB found the former president did not meet the necessary requirements.
Matojane said the former president’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.
However, 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, and the Constitutional Court also upheld this decision.
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”.
