Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo will not be handing down his ruling today as to whether he will recuse himself from hearing former President Jacob Zuma’s testimony.
Zondo announced this in a brief sitting of the State Capture Commission at which Zuma lodged the application for his recusal.
On Monday, lawyers for Zuma as well as the legal team of the Commission made arguments for and against the recusal to Zondo.
Zuma believes he will not get a fair hearing from the Deputy Chief Justice.
“I am not going to give a ruling or judgment this morning because I am still working on it. I still have some documentation to go through carefully. I am going to use today to work on that judgment.”
“So we are going to adjourn and resume tomorrow [Wednesday] at 10am by which time I hope to be ready to deliver my ruling on the recusal application,” says Zondo.
Below is today’s live stream:
Impartial
Zuma’s lawyer Muzi Sikhakhane says the test regarding bias on the part of a judge must be that a reasonable person can believe that they will receive a fair trial.
Sikhakhane says he will demonstrate that Zondo’s conduct shows he is not impartial.
“As much as this environment is easy for you, for me and for Mr Pretorious it’s not easy for a client or for an ordinary citizen as an accused because it does not matter what we say about Mr. Zuma.”
“The narrative is that Mr Zuma sits as an accused and therefore that is the context in which you must look at his apprehension about this commission’s choice of witnesses, this commission’s comments during the testimony of those witnesses.”
State Capture Inquiry proceedings from November 16:
