Legal expert, Advocate Ben Winks, says that Thursday’s judgement by the Constitutional Court on former President Jacob Zuma’s has been misinterpreted.
The Constitutional Court dismissed the Department of Correctional Services’ application for leave to appeal a ruling that former President, Jacob Zuma must go back to prison.
In the ruling handed down earlier, the apex court found that the department’s appeal bears no reasonable prospect of success, and dismissed the application with costs.
Winks says the SCA did not rule on time served by Zuma on medical parole.
“The judgement has or the result today has been, I think, misinterpreted a bit because the judgement of the Supreme Court of Appeal contained a line in it saying that President Zuma has not finished serving his sentence, he must return to Estcourt prison. Now, that was a reference to the 15-months to which he had been sentenced. Now, that 15 months has actually passed. The SCA declined to grant an order that was sought by some of the intervening parties, that the time spent on medical parole should not count as part of his 15 months sentence.”
VIDEO | Legal analysis of ConCourt’s rulings on Zuma, Mkhwebane: Adv. Ben Winks:
In November last year, the SCA set aside the High Court order which declared that the time Zuma spent out on medical parole should not be counted as part of the prison sentence.
The Constitutional Court had handed Zuma a 15-month prison sentence in June 2021 after he had defied its order to appear before the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture.
The sentence expired on the 7th of October last year.
At the time, the JG Zuma Foundation welcomed the decision of the Supreme Court of Appeal.
The foundation’s spokesperson Mzwanele Manyi said all that mattered was that the former president had not been sent back to jail.
“The Foundation welcomes the fact that His Excellency President Zuma is not going to jail. I think it will also help the sentiment in the country and it will create stability for the country because the sentiment on the ground was very negative towards President Zuma going to jail,” Manyi said at the time.
“So, we think that is very good, as for the rest of other things, I just think they are for academics for case law, for us a big win is the fact that President Zuma is not going back to jail. tThat is the bottom line.”
