Home South African Zondo Commission provides details opposing Zuma’s high court application

Zondo Commission provides details opposing Zuma’s high court application

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The Zondo Commission has filed a responding affidavit to oppose former president Jacob Zuma’s urgent interdict against his arrest.

Former President Jacob Zuma. File picture: Karen Sandison/African News Agency (ANA)

THE STATE Capture Commission has filed a responding affidavit at the Pietermaritzburg High Court, where former president Jacob Zuma has applied for an urgent interdict against his imminent arrest.

In the court documents, which Independent Media has seen, the secretary of the commission, Professor Itumeleng Mosala, provided an affidavit to motivate its opposition to Zuma’s application.

In brief, the commission has opposed the application, saying that the high court lacked the jurisdiction to entertain the matter.

The commission argued that the high court did not have the jurisdiction to stay or suspend court orders, as its jurisdiction only extended to its own orders and not any other court, particularly a higher court.

“To suggest otherwise would wholly undermine the hierarchy of our court system, as prescribed by the Constitution,” it stated.

“In the context of this case, the Constitutional Court must be left to assert its authority, as well as to deal with the applicant’s persistent attempts to undermine that court and the judicial system as a whole.”

The commission also stated that the court application was a “continuation of the pattern of abuse” of court processes by Zuma.

“Courts should not entertain such abuse any longer,” it states.

The commission stated that Zuma’s application did not satisfy the requirements for an interim interdict.

Zuma made an urgent application to the Pietermaritzburg High Court to interdict Minister of Police Bheki Cele and the police from arresting him. The matter will be heard at the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Tuesday.

He said it was in the interest of justice that his case is heard.

“I seek an order declaring that it is not compatible that with the Constitution for a person, convicted of the crime of civil contempt, to be sentenced to any term of imprisonment, without conducting a civil or criminal trial, in terms of the Criminal Procedure Act,” Zuma said in his application.

Among the other respondents cited by Zuma in this new case is President Cyril Ramaphosa, Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, the minister of Correctional Services, who has since been instructed to prepare him a jail cell at Westville Prison in Durban, and Police commissioner General Khehla Sitole.

While Ramaphosa, Cele and Sitole did not oppose to his application, the Zondo Commission did.

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