Zuma's case 'hopeless', prosecutors tell ConCourt

The NPA has criticised former President Jacob Zuma’s last-ditch attempt to permanently stop his corruption trial as ‘hopeless’. ‘What the public interest and the interests of justice now require is that Mr Zuma stand his trial,’ lead Zuma prosecutor Billy Downer states in papers filed at the Constitutional Court last week, notes a Business Day report by legal writer Karyn Maughan. Downer urged the Constitutional Court to dismiss Zuma’s latest bid to appeal against a ruling delivered by the KZN High Court (Pietermaritzburg) in 2019, in which three judges rejected the former President’s argument that the 15-year-old corruption case against him was fatally tainted by undue delay and political interference. In March, the Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed Zuma’s attempts to challenge that decision without even hearing arguments on the case, on the basis that his appeal bid had no reasonable prospect of success. Now Zuma has turned to the Constitutional Court, the only option left to avoid going on trial on charges that he received corrupt benefits from his former financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, in exchange for using his position to advance Shaik’s business interests.

Zuma argues a fair trial is impossible because of the 15-year delay in proceeding with the case – as well as alleged political interference in his prosecution. But, notes Business Day, Downer says Zuma has done nothing to prove these claims, and is adamant that the trial delay, which the High Court found both the NPA and Zuma were equally responsible for, has not had any serious effects on the evidence that the state intends to lead against the former President. This, Downer says, is because the case against Zuma was ‘very thoroughly investigated between 2000 and 2006’ and ‘the bulk of the evidential material is documentary, the documents have been preserved and copies of most of the relevant documents were handed to Mr Zuma’s legal representatives as long ago as 2006’. Downer said Zuma’s Constitutional Court appeal application is, arguably, the 10th legal attempt by him to delay the case against him from going ahead.

Full City Press report

In his affidavit filed in March, Zuma argues that the NPA has, since 2003, made ‘irrational and unlawful’ decisions relating to his prosecution. ‘There is ample evidence from law reports of judicial remarks made in exasperation over these decisions made at different times by the NPA.’ According to TimesLIVE, he claims the KZN High Court failed ‘dismally’ to do what it had been called to do: to evaluate the conduct and decisions of the NPA. ‘The full court was called upon to determine, in light of the mandatory constitutional and mandatory provisions governing the exercise of prosecutional powers by the NPA, whether the NPA's conduct was so egregious in nature as to compromise the achievement of a trial in my prosecution,’ Zuma points out.

– TimesLIVE