Pretoria - President Cyril Ramaphosa will not be forced to appear before the Gauteng South Division of the High Court next week after his application to block a private prosecution instituted by former president Jacob Zuma was granted by a full bench of judges.
Zuma wanted his successor prosecuted, accusing him of being an “accessory after the fact” following advocate Billy Downer, SC, and journalist Karyn Maughan allegedly leaking Zuma’s confidential medical information during his arms deal trial.
Last week Ramaphosa applied to the court to grant him an interdict that would prevent him from appearing in the court on Thursday after receiving a summons from Zuma last year.
The court, presided over by a full bench comprising Gauteng Deputy Judge President Roland Sutherland, Judge Edwin Molahlehi and Judge Marcus Senyatsi, yesterday found that Zuma’s private prosecution against Ramaphosa was “unconstitutional” and that “urgency had been proved” by Ramaphosa’s lawyers, resulting in the court granting the president an urgent interdict.
The court papers, seen by Pretoria News, state: “The application is urgent on the ordinary forms and service provided for the uniform rules of court on the specimen. Pending the final determination of part B, first respondent interdicted from taking any further steps to give effect to the volley prosecute certificates of November 21, 2022 and June 6, 2022 and the summons is issued by the register on December 15 … 21 of 2022 to pursue the private prosecution.
“The cost occasioned by this urgent application shall be reserved for the decision of the hearing upon me in this case. The party’s representatives are directed to immediately approach the office of the deputy judge president to arrange a case management meeting to set an agreed date for the hearing. We hand down this judgment, which will be uploaded online within the email to such parties.”
Jacob Zuma Foundation spokesperson Mzwanele Manyi said justice had not been served by the court.
In a voice note he sent to the publication, he said Zuma was still be consulting with his legal team as to what to do next.
“His excellency president Zuma is consulting with his lawyers as to where to go from here and we will issue a statement in due course, but we want to say justice has not been served and we have preferential treatment taking place here. We think that in the end we have a criminal justice system for the elite and we have one for the poor, where the elite can evade going to court. The court has really misdirected itself.”
He added that the foundation felt vindicated that in the “11th hour”, the upgrading of one judge to a full bench was suspicious.
“So now we know what that was, so we feel vindicated.
“We also observed the duplicity of the judiciary that on the one hand we have a situation in the country where one person is charged for lack of oversight for not doing something, but today we hear that the court has characterised this case as a novel case of somebody that is being charged for something that they have not done,” Manyi said.
“We differ from the court, we think the court has erred in saying that if Ramaphosa goes to court he will suffer irreparable harm. How can that be? There would be no harm. Because that harm is always reversed by the verdict of the court. So why is it that the court has decided that this would be harmful?” Manyi asked.
However, former chairperson of the Pretoria Society of Advocates, Francois Botes, SC, disagreed with Manyi’s assertions, saying it was almost impossible for anyone to interfere with court proceedings.
“It’s impossible for anybody to interfere with how a court or a judge conducts its business. Once there is any interference from outside, specifically from a president or a head of state, the judge would immediately inform the judge president or the Judicial Service Commission or any other authority of such interference,” Botes said.
Botes also said Zuma could not appeal the judgment of the court because it was an interim order, it did not have a final effect and it was not definitive of the rights of the party.
“It’s not appealing.”
He said “what the court found was in the prima facie evidence that was presented to the court there was a case to be made that Ramaphosa on the probabilities will be successful with such a challenge”.
“Former president Jacob Zuma decided to employ every legal avenue available so as to frustrate the prosecution against him regarding the arms deal case. He is literally exhausting every possible avenue available to him so as to frustrate his trial to start.
“Zuma will do everything in his power to avoid appearing before court for his trial,” Botes said.
Pretoria News