Former president Jacob Zuma will not be participating in the hearing of the contempt of court application against him in the Constitutional Court.
The top court will on Thursday hear the state-capture commission’s application to have Zuma found in contempt after he ignored an order that he appear before deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo to answer questions about his role.
The commission wants the former president jailed for two years for defying the highest court in the land.
In written arguments to the Constitutional Court, advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi SC for the commission said a fine or suspended sentence would not achieve anything as it would not persuade Zuma to comply with the order to appear.
Ngcukaitobi said Zuma was “determined” not to heed the court order, despite the commission secretary indicating that the inquiry may yet be able to hear his evidence should the Constitutional Court grant a suspension of a contempt of court order to allow him to do so.
Zuma will not be opposing the application, and has indicated he has no intention of participating in the proceedings, the Constitutional Court said in its prehearing summary. This means the application will proceed unopposed. The court will then only hear arguments from the commission and the Helen Suzman Foundation (HSF), which applied to be a friend of the court, and will make a decision based on that, without input from the former president.
This was the same tactic he used when the commission approached the Constitutional Court last year in a bid to force him to comply with subpoenas issued by Zondo for him to appear before the inquiry.
The foundation said it would make submissions to the court about the appropriate sanction for Zuma’s contempt.
“The HSF contends that, in determining an appropriate sanction, it must be taken into account that Mr Zuma’s contempt of this court’s order seriously impedes the functioning of the commission and undermines its ability to fulfil its crucial truth-seeking mandate,” it said.
The commission approached the Constitutional Court after Zuma failed to appear before it in February despite being issued a summons and the order that he must appear to answer questions about his alleged role in state capture.
The commission has also laid two charges against Zuma for his failure to comply with subpoenas, a contravention of the Commissions Act. If after investigations he is prosecuted, he could face a fine or imprisonment.
The former president has made his disdain for the commission and the apex court clear in statements after the order and the application for a contempt of court order. He accused both of being politicised.
Zuma has said that his defiance of the court’s order and the commission was not a breach of the law but a protest against some in the judiciary that had “sold their souls and departed from their oath of office”.
In response to the commission announcing in February that it would approach the apex court for a contempt of court order, Zuma said: “I wait to face the sentence to be issued by the Constitutional Court.”
Zuma has sought to defy and discredit the commission. Witnesses have placed him, family members and his friends the Gupta family, to whom he was said to have handed over power to hire ministers, at the centre of huge corruption during his nine-year rule.
Nearly 40 witnesses implicated Zuma in testimony to the commission since it started its work in August 2018.
The commission has until June this year to complete its work and present its report to President Cyril Ramaphosa, who will be testifying at the inquiry in April.
quintalg@businesslive.co.za
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