Africa-Press – South-Africa. Former president Jacob Zuma says he is deeply disappointed the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg granted President Cyril Ramaphosa an urgent interdict against him, halting his private prosecution bid against his successor.
Zuma wanted to prosecute Ramaphosa, saying he was an accessory after the fact.
The former president also accused prosecutor advocate Billy Downer and News24 journalist Karyn Maughan of allegedly leaking Zuma’s confidential medical information during his arms deal trial.
Both Downer and Maughan have lodged applications to have the private prosecutions declared an abuse of court processes.
Zuma then wrote to Ramaphosa asking that he investigate the case, but after he had not heard back from the president, decided to prosecute him for being complicit in the alleged wrongdoing as an accessory after the crime had been committed.
In a strongly worded response to Monday’s ruling, the Jacob Zuma Foundation said: “His Excellency Jacob Zuma is obviously disappointed but certainly not at all surprised by yet another travesty of justice this time dished out by the South Gauteng High Court, which granted the urgent interdict in favour of President Cyril Ramaphosa.”
It went on to cast aspersions against the judiciary saying, “it is by now clear that our justice system will do anything in their considerable power to protect Mr Ramaphosa”.
The statement went on to state it was an “unenviable task of all those who believe in equality before the law to tirelessly expose the double standards that are constantly applied in favour of those who carry out the agenda of the continuous oppression and landlessness of the black people”.
Ramaphosa was expected to present himself before a criminal court on Thursday, based on a summons issued in December 2022.
Monday’s judgment now means he no longer has to appear.
Granting the urgent interdict, Gauteng Deputy Judge President Roland Sutherland said Ramaphosa’s legal representatives had demonstrated the president had no other form of relief that he could seek other than the interim interdict.
“This we take to be axiomatic as it would require [Ramaphosa] to appear before the criminal court and, by so doing, implicitly submit to a process which he claims is unlawful.
“Were [Ramaphosa] to succeed later to have the private prosecution declared invalid, the harm of the submission to unlawful action cannot be undone,” added Sutherland.
He said, “the harm of being submitted to an alleged illegal prosecution could not be undone, but no harm would befall the former president should his prosecution be delayed”.
Sutherland then ordered both parties to “immediately approach the Office of the Deputy Judge President in Johannesburg” to arrange a case management meeting to set “an agreed date for the hearing” where the merits of Ramaphosa’s claims could be correctly argued.
For More News And Analysis About South-Africa Follow Africa-Press
