The Constitutional Court has upheld its decision to sentence former president Jacob Zuma’s 15-month jail term for being found in contempt of SAs apex court for his refusal to testify on state capture.
Zuma has served only two months of his jail term before he was granted medical parole earlier in September. Though he has already been released from jail, he remains in an unknown private hospital, pending discharge from his doctors.
In handing down the judgment, Justice Sisi Khampepe said it was not in the interest of justice for Zuma to be released from jail.
“Mr Zuma has not met the statutory requirements of a rescission [application]. The majority finds that Mr Zuma has failed to state why the judgment was erroneously granted,” Khampepe said.
The Concourt said Zuma’s failure to appear and participate in the matter when it was first heard, cannot now be used as grounds to rescind his jail sentence.
The decision by Arthur Fraser, the national commissioner of correctional services, to release Zuma from jail has been challenged by the DA, the Helen Suzman Foundation and AfriForum.
Zuma’s arrest set in motion a week of looting, violence and destruction of key infrastructure in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. The riots dealt a blow to the country’s Covid-19-battered economy by wiping about R50bn off the GDP.
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