EFF, IFP welcome high court decision on Zuma

Johannesburg – The EFF and IFP have welcomed the ruling by the High Court in Pretoria on Friday to review and set aside the decision to discontinue the prosecution against President Jacob Zuma.

The full bench of the court found Zuma should face the 783 charges of corruption.

EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said Zuma’s violations of the law and Constitution were now “legendary”. 

“There is no difference between Jacob Zuma and the thousands of criminal suspects and accused persons, some of whom are behind bars awaiting trial.

“Jacob Zuma is a danger to society," he said.

“Failure to prosecute criminals simply allows them space to continue with their crimes against the public. We call on the National Director of Public Prosecutions Shaun Abrahams not to even be tempted to further delay the inevitable resumption of Zuma’s prosecution.”

Ndlozi warned Abrahams not to become “susceptible to the same political pressure from the ANC that resulted in advocate Mokotedi Mpshe’s disgraceful and unlawful conduct”. 

“The EFF will be watching Abrahams’ next move with a hawk’s eye.”

Ndlozi also called for the immediate removal or resignation of Mpshe.

“We call on the General Council of the Bar and the Judicial Services Commission to take steps to ensure Mpshe’s removal from any office that requires public confidence in him.”

Mpshe was head of the NPA at the time the decision was made not to prosecute Zuma.

Inkatha Freedom Party Chief Whip in Parliament Narend Singh said the high court decision showed justice had prevailed over “political manipulation and machinations”.

“What is of grave concern, and what was actually remarked upon by the court, was the indictment against Mr Mpshe that he ignored his oath of office, which seems to be becoming the order of the day under this government. In a constitutional democracy such as ours, this constitutes the gravest of violations and affronts against the rule of law and should not be without the most stringent of sanction.”

National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa spokesperson Patrick Craven said the union hoped that, among other things, Zuma would go to trial.

“[A trial will] facilitate the exposure of the full truth behind the arms deal, unlike the Seriti Commission report which was a mere window-dressing exercise.”

Craven said the ruling vindicated the call by Numsa’s Special National Congress in December 2013 to call on Zuma to resign the administration’s pursuit of “neo-liberal policies”.

He said the Zuma administration had a track record “steeped in corruption, patronage and nepotism”.

In September 2008, in the KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Pietermaritzburg, Judge Chris Nicholson dismissed criminal charges against Zuma, citing a political conspiracy to influence the case by former president Thabo Mbeki and others.

Nicholson's decision was taken to the Supreme Court of Appeal and overturned. Zuma subsequently appealed this in the Constitutional Court, setting in motion a direct approach to the NPA to make written and oral representations on why the case should be dropped.

On April 6 2009 Mpshe said recordings of telephone conversations between then-Scorpions boss Leonard McCarthy and former NPA boss Bulelani Ngcuka showed political interference in the decision to charge Zuma.

The two were recorded discussing the timing of bringing charges against Zuma. The charges related to his alleged involvement in the country’s multibillion-rand arms deal.

Zuma’s former financial adviser Schabir Shaik was found guilty of fraud and corruption by the KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Durban in June 2005. He tried to solicit a bribe for Zuma from a French arms company involved in the deal.

On April 7 2009 the charges against Zuma were withdrawn in the High Court in Durban.

Zuma was sworn in for his first term as president in May that year, following general elections.