Mpofu described the organisations as right wing and ’racist’.
CAPE TOWN – Former president Jacob Zuma on Tuesday complained about being disrespected by the three organisations that want to revoke his medical parole.
The Helen Suzman Foundation (HSF), AfriForum and the DA asked the North Gauteng High Court to overturn the decision by former correctional services national commissioner Arthur Fraser to grant Zuma parole.
Zuma’s lawyer Dali Mpofu SC said the case was clearly a politically motivated application, and that the HSF, AfriForum and DA application was a mighty waste of judicial processes.
Mpofu described the organisations as right wing and “racist”.
”Our courts cannot be used for this thing,” he said, adding that the matter was full of falsities and that the parties involved were propping up a case that was non-existent.
According to Mpofu, the case was a political point-scoring exercise. In his argument, Thabani Masuku SC, representing Zuma, asked Judge Keoagile Matojane to dismiss the application as the applicants had no locus standi to bring it, and it had no practical legal effect.
Masuku accused the entities of asking for Zuma’s right to privacy to be violated.
This would lead to the ex-head of state’s medical records being published and splashed in newspapers.
“They are seeking to humiliate Mr Zuma,” he said.
”The DA is Zuma’s political foe. They want to humiliate Zuma.“
Masuku said Zuma did not have a duty to disclose his medical conditions to his political opponents.
He said the organisations had no claim to Zuma’s medical privacy, and that the issue was not so urgent as to warrant the court’s intervention.
”The interests of justice would require that what they require is a moot remedy.
“We are suggesting that there is an issue of mootness in the issue that they are seeking,” he said.
Masuku said there was no dispute about Zuma’s medical condition as the former president was indeed unwell.
He said the HSF, AfriForum and DA wanted Zuma to endure the indignity of physical incarceration, and to humiliate him.
The HSF’s Max du Plessis said the case was a straightforward one as Fraser had erred in law and acted irrationally.
He said Fraser should not have been allowed to be a doctor or a law unto himself as he was not a medical commissar.
Du Plessis insisted that Zuma was not physically incapacitated or terminally ill.
Judge Matojane reserved judgment.
POLITICAL BUREAU
