Battle lines drawn as Zuma medical parole matter heads to SCA

JOHANNESBURG – According to the Democratic Alliance (DA), the one clarification for former statesman Jacob Zuma’s launch from jail on medical parole is that he acquired particular remedy due to who he’s.

Zuma’s protracted battle to wriggle out of his jail time continues subsequent month within the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA).

The first case on the SCA’s roll when its third time period commences on 15 August, is an enchantment from Zuma and the nationwide correctional companies commissioner in opposition to the Pretoria High Court’s ruling that put aside then prisons boss Arthur Fraser’s resolution to grant Zuma medical parole.

Zuma was granted medical parole final September, after serving simply two months of the 15-month jail sentence he bought slapped with for contempt of the Constitutional Court final June.

The Medical Parole Advisory Board had really helpful that Zuma not be launched citing that he was “stable” and didn’t meet the necessities set out within the Correctional Services Act, which state that so as to qualify for medical parole, an offender have to be “suffering from a terminal disease or condition or if such offender is rendered physically incapacitated as a result of injury, disease or illness so as to severely limit daily activity or inmate self-care”.

But then Fraser overruled the board, in his causes he stated Zuma was “79-years-old and undeniably a frail old person,” who suffered from “multiple comorbidities,” requiring “specialised treatment outside the Department of Correctional Services”.

He additionally cited a dissenting report from one member of the board.

Judge Elias Matojane subsequently put aside Fraser’s resolution, discovering he had acted unlawfully by flouting the board’s advice.

He ordered Zuma’s return to jail, ruling, as well as, that the time he had since spent on the surface not be thought-about time served.

This is on the again of authorized challenges from the DA, the Helen Suzman Foundation (HSF) and AfriForum.

Both Zuma and the commissioner have been granted depart to enchantment the ruling, although, and the matter has been set down for listening to on 15 August.

In the papers, the DA’s legal professionals preserve Fraser’s resolution was “patently unlawful”.

“The commissioner granted medical parole against the recommendation of the medical parole advisory board. He was not permitted to do so. The board is a specialist body made up of doctors. If it recommends against medical parole, the commissioner is not permitted to grant it,” they stated.

They stated the choice was additionally irrational.

“The commissioner claims that he made the parole decision because Mr Zuma needed to be close to tertiary medical care. But he then sent Mr Zuma to Nkandla, which is hundreds of kilometres away from the nearest tertiary hospital,” they stated.

“The only way in which the parole decision makes any sense is if it was granted for the reason that the public suspects that Mr Zuma received favourable treatment because of his political standing.”

The DA additionally needs the SCA to censure Zuma for describing the social gathering – along with the opposite candidates within the excessive court docket case as, amongst others, “proto-racist rightwing organisations”.

In his papers earlier than the excessive court docket, Zuma went on a tirade accusing the three organisations of getting racist
motives, which the DA labelled “scandalous and vexatious” as properly as “unbecoming” of a former president.

In Zuma’s affidavit, he had stated the case was “a thinly-veiled political stunt aimed at cheap electioneering, racist hatred, opportunism and the unwanted attention of busybodies”.

He had additionally charged that the three candidates have been all “white-dominated and proto-racist rightwing organisations whose mission in life is to mock the current black-dominated government”.

Zuma had additional recommended they have been “apartheid apologists who nostalgically hanker for the good old days when black people, especially Africans, were treated as sub-humans,” and that they have been “seeking a judicial lynching of their political opponent or enemy”.

Over and above denying the claims, the DA’s authorized group in its papers earlier than the SCA described them as “baseless invective” that “coarsens our national dialogue” and undermined the dignity of the court docket.

“We submit that it would be appropriate for this court [SCA] to admonish Mr Zuma for it,” they stated.

Zuma, in the meantime, in his papers earlier than the SCA maintains his criticism of what he describes as the “underlying political agenda behind the application”.

“We do not accept their review application as being legitimately based on the public interest but only on the sectarian interests of their minority constituencies,” they learn.

He caught to his weapons, insisting the appliance was solely introduced to “abuse the court for the political interests of the DA and HSF”.

“In its political campaigns, the DA has made its goal to scandalise Mr Zuma’s medical condition by creating unnecessary political controversy over whether he has a terminal medical condition,” his papers learn.

“Casting doubts and scandalising of Mr Zuma’s medical condition without any contrary medical evidence is an irresponsible abuse of the court. These respondents are using the courts to harass Mr Zuma and to continue the political narrative that he has corruptly obtained an undeserved medical parole”.

The nationwide commissioner, for his half, continued to insist that releasing Zuma “into the care of his family with the advanced medical support from the South African Military Health Service medical team was the best option compared to keeping him in hospital for a considerable and unforeseeable period of time at a considerable cost to the Department [of Correctional Services] and the state”.