Advocate Dali Mpofu, representing Zuma and the MK party, has argued that the test of reasonableness of bias must be viewed from the perspective of the litigant, in this case, former president Jacob Zuma.
This after the bench in the Constitutional Court asked Mpofu about the test for the reasonable apprehension of bias. The test for the reasonable apprehension of bias is that suspicion of bias must be that of a reasonable person.
The uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) party and the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) are squaring up in the Constitutional Court. This comes after the IEC appealed the ruling of the Electoral Court, which found the leader of the MK party, Jacob Zuma eligible to stand as its candidate in this month’s elections.
This was despite the Constitutional Court handing Zuma a 15-month prison sentence in June 2021.
Judge Mbuyiseli Madlanga asked Mpofu who is seeking the recusal of six Supreme Court judges who presided over his contempt of court matter three years ago.
ConCourt hears IEC vs Electoral Court over Zuma’s Validity to run for public office
Earlier this year, the commission disqualified Zuma due to the sentence. Zuma launched a counter-application requesting the recusal of the six justices who presided over his contempt of court matter three years ago.
Zuma argued that the Constitutional Court would have no quorum to entertain the Electoral Commission’s appeal.
The IEC argues that its appeal does not require the interpretation of Zuma’s contempt of court matter and therefore there is no basis for requesting the recusal of the justices.
Advocate Dali Mpofu, who represents Zuma and the MK party says, “If you had sat in jail for months, locked up in some cell, believing that you should not be there because you never had a trial, believing that this is the most unfair thing to be meted out, that you are treated worse than P.W. Botha of all people if you believe that and he still believes that by the way, so the reasonable person must be taken from that vantage point. Not me or, with respect, yourself Justice Madlanga or someone in the omnibus. No. That belief is his belief.”
Madlanga: Aren’t you close to making the test subjective?
Mpofu: No, i’m not. I’m not justice madlanga, please.
Mpofu also argues that the justices on the Constitutional Court bench will have to interpret their own contempt of court judgment against Zuma in 2021.
Mpofu says, “Nobody can deny, really, that the two points that deal with conviction and the points that deal with sentence will go to the following question: Was the conviction that was meted out by this court, a conviction for the purposes of Section 147 and was the sentence which was also handed down a sentence. So how can that include an interpretation of their judgment? Surely, it does.”
