Thursday | July 08, 2021
Jacob Zuma, the former South African President, handed himself to police custody on Thursday morning following the Constitutional Court order.
The Minister of Police Bheki Cele’s office said:
“The Police Ministry can confirm that former President of South Africa, Mr Jacob Zuma was placed in @SAPoliceService custody as in compliance with the @ConCourtSA judgement.”
Mr. Zuma was sentenced to 15 months in prison for contempt of court for appearing on the sitting Commission of Inquiry into State Capture headed by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo.
He left his residencial compound in Nkandla in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province in the middle of the night on Wednesday July 7. Mr. Zuma turned by the SA police members under his watch into the Estcourt Correctional Services in the early hours of Thursday July 08 morning after a last ditch effort by his legal team to stay his arrest. Suffice to say the intial Constitutional Court verdict directed that Mr Zuma be admitted to Westville Correctional Services in KZN.
As Mr. Zuma begins his prison term, his arrest was not short of drama. On Sunday, hordes of people who declared themselves “human shields” gathered at his homestead to offer support and assure him that he will never go to jail.
But on Wednesday night, the throngs of people seen on Sunday had dimished as the net was closing down on a man who run the country from 2009 to 2018 before he was recalled by his political party for abuse of office and state power. Even his stepping down as a nation’s first citizen did not come easy. He held on as long as time allowed until it became clear that his defiance was a futile exercise since the balance of forces had taken a new direction in the country.
Last night, was quite a historic show as the clock ticked away against Mr. Zuma. According to Siphamandla Goge of eNCA, Mr Zuma was given two options to report to a correctional service authorities:
Firstly, the VIP (Very Important Persons) Protection Unit that falls under the South African Police Service (SAPS) guarding Mr. Zuma was ordered to either hand him over to custody or stand down and leave him without state protection. Secondly, the SAPS would then pounce on the unguarded former President and that would open the way for the police to take him to prison.
Quite obviously, these two advanced options by Goge left Mr. Zuma with little room to evade jail time. As it were, the Court order had directed Mr. Zuma to hand himself to prison authorities by Sunday July 04. As it turned out, this did not happen.
The second directive was for the police to arrest him by Wednesday night not withstanding all the attempts to file late applications and letters to stay the Constitutional Court arrest order. Mr. Zuma is now under state correctional service authorities, detained and serving his time in jail.
On the other side, the former President’s legal heads filed a quick application and argued in the Pietermaritzburg High Court to stay his arrest on Tuesday July 06. The judgement was rerseved on Tuesday and it will be delivered and heard on Friday July 09.
However, the exercise of jurisprudence in South Africa accords no room for lower courts to overturn high courts decisions. For this reason, it would appear Mr. Zuma’s legal representatives overlooked this basic South African law practice. That is to say, the High Court, at least from SA’s legal perspective, has no jurisdiction over the Constitutional Court order since the latter is the apex court in the land.
Quite sadly, the High Court reserved judgment did not change the status of the arrest directive.
Moreover, Mr. Zuma’s legal team also filed an urgent application concurrently (with the stay of arrest) in the Constitutional Court to rescind its 15-month sentence. It is expected that his legal representatives will seek a chance for mitigation even though the applicant declined to appear in the earlier court proceedings. The sitting for this hearing will be on Monday July 12, 2021.