Former president Jacob Zuma’s bid to privately prosecute President Cyril Ramaphosa was postponed to August 6 to allow the appeal processes to be completed.
Zuma alleges Ramaphosa was an accessory to the alleged “leaking” of what Zuma has described as confidential medical information. Zuma alleged in 2021 that Billy Downer, the prosecutor in the arms deal criminal trial in which Zuma is a co-accused, disclosed a doctor’s note to journalist Karyn Maughan in an alleged breach of prosecuting legislation.
The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) dismissed Zuma’s bid last year to appeal against the Johannesburg high court’s earlier ruling against the private prosecution. Zuma has taken the SCA’s ruling on appeal.
Zuma’s legal representative, Dali Mpofu, on Thursday asked the high court in Johannesburg that the matter be postponed to allow the appeal process to be completed.
“The latest status of the matter is that on April 4, the counsel for Mr Ramaphosa filed an answering affidavit opposing the application for reconsideration in terms of section 17(2) f in the SCA, which means we are now due to do a reply,” he said.
“The implications of that are the matter will have to be postponed once again. The reason is unlike a criminal matter where you can withdraw charges and reinstate them. In terms of section 11 of the Criminal Procedure Act, if the private prosecutor does not appear on a set date the matter is permanently dismissed and therefore the arrangement we have had with this court ... is that we will have these. As a result, to avoid coming every month, we have traditionally agreed on a longer-than-normal postponement ... so that it allows for the appeals to be finalised.”
Judge Norman Manoim postponed the matter.
Zuma is also seeking to privately prosecute Downer and Maughan. That case was postponed to April 17 by the high court in Pietermaritzburg on Tuesday.
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