Former President Jacob Zuma will oppose President Cyril Ramaphosa’s urgent application against his private prosecution bid.
On Tuesday, the President filed papers in the Gauteng High Court to interdict Zuma from taking further steps to give effect to his private prosecution proceedings. Ramaphosa was also seeking the court to excuse him from appearing before it on the 19th of January 2022 as directed by the summons.
Zuma launched the court action against the President for allegedly contravening the National Prosecution Authority (NPA) Act on the disclosure of his medical records by the prosecutor, Billy Downer and journalist, Karyn Maughan.
However, the Jacob Zuma Foundation has lashed out at the President for what it says is an attempt to ignore the summons. Spokesperson, Mzwanele Manyi says Ramaphosa’s application is not urgent and that the President can ventilate his concerns in court.
“This is self-created urgency. This is an abuse of authority, this is an abuse of process. This is an abuse of the courts. This is really seeking preferential treatment. All people that face criminal charges go and appear in court. President Ramaphosa is criminally charged, 19th of January is the date. He must go and answer all the issues that he is now trying to raise. These are issues that he can raise on the 19th of January in court. Why does he want special treatment including, can you imagine, being excused to appear in court? So in other words, he is too important to sit in the dock as a criminally accused.”
VIDEO | Former President Zuma intends to oppose President Ramaphosa’s urgent interdict
Certificates of non-prosecution
Manyi has accused the NPA of lying about the certificates of non-prosecution it issued. The NPA previously issued the certificates but said they were not in relation to the President.
Zuma has dug in his heels despite the President’s demand that he withdraw the summons.
Manyi elaborates, “We want to put it on record that the NPA lied, the NPA misled the public, the NPA said President Ramaphosa is not mentioned in the docket when he is mentioned so that so-called clarification that they issued is not worth the paper that it is written on. We’ll deal with that in court but they lied.”
