Pretoria - Former president Jacob Zuma has opted to go to the Constitutional Court to have President Cyril Ramaphosa’s interdict, secured last month at the Gauteng South High Court, Johannesburg, overturned.
Ramaphosa was granted an interdict not to be forced to appear before the court, after Zuma instituted private prosecution against him.
Zuma wanted Ramaphosa prosecuted as an “accessory after the fact” in the private prosecution in which he accuses advocate Billy Downer, SC, and journalist Karyn Maughan of leaking his confidential medical information during his arms deal trial.
Both Downer and Maughan have lodged applications to have that private prosecution declared an abuse of court processes.
However, Ramaphosa had applied to the court to grant him an interdict that would prevent him from appearing in the court after receiving a summons from Zuma last year.
The court, presided over by a full bench comprising Gauteng Deputy Judge President Roland Sutherland, Judge Edwin Molahlehi and Judge Marcus Senyatsi, found Zuma’s private prosecution against Ramaphosa was “unconstitutional”, and that “urgency had been proved” by Ramaphosa’s lawyers, resulting in the court granting the president an urgent interdict.
Now Zuma has turned to the apex court to have the interdict overturned, filing an application for leave to appeal with the court where he was previously convicted for refusing to appear before the State Capture Commission chaired by now Chief Justice Raymond Zondo.
If the application is granted, it means Zuma would have bypassed the Supreme Court of Appeal.
The court papers filed with the court this week state that the case raised constitutional arguments because Zuma was being denied his right to access the court of the land.
It reads in part: “Please note that the above-mentioned applicant/appellant (Zuma) intends to apply for leave to appeal against the whole of the judgment and order of the Gauteng Local Division, Johannesburg (Per Sutherland DJP, Molahlehi and Senyatsi JJ) delivered on 16 January 2022. The applicant seeks an order.”
The former president further argues that it is in the interests of justice that the application be heard, and that it raises questions about the interpretation of the Criminal Procedure Act.
Zuma adds that the interdict temporarily halting his private prosecution of Ramaphosa was “one of the saddest chapters in the history of injustice in South Africa”.
In one aspect, Zuma is appealing that judges wear different coloured robes in the civil and criminal courts, arguing that there is a difference.
“The criminal courts are specifically created for criminal matters while civil courts are created to adjudicate over civil matters. There is a difference between the two and one court cannot and should not trample on the powers of the other.
“The mere fact that the civil courts and the criminal courts are governed by two separate statutes is sufficiently indicative of the vast differences between the two,” argues Zuma.
Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, did not responded to questions on the matter.
However, the Pretoria News has learnt the president had filed court papers to the high court to have the whole private prosecution case dismissed, saying the private prosecution was unlawful, unconstitutional and invalid.
Pretoria News