Zuma to appeal corruption charge ruling
President Jacob Zuma says he will join the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) in appealing the High Court ruling which suggested corruption charges be reinstated against him.
In April 2016, the North Gauteng High Court ruled that former NPA head, Mokotedi Mpshe, acted impulsively and irrationally when he decided to drop the charges of corruption laid against president Jacob Zuma in 2009.
The president was facing 738 charges of corruption, fraud and racketeering.
Zuma was the third respondent in the case which was brought by the Democratic Alliance, and late on Monday applied for leave to appeal the ruling.
“The President believes that the decision of the Court affects him directly and is of a strong view that the Court erred in several respects in its decision,” the presidency said in a statement.
Zuma believes that the High Court ignored all the evidence which showed that the charges were brought with the intent to smear him politically.
The President said that the grounds on which the application is based include the following:
- The Court erred as a matter of law in matters including the interpretation and application of the case law relating to rationality as a ground for a legality challenge, and in holding that the National Director of Public Prosecutions is not entitled to terminate a prosecution on the basis of prosecutorial misconduct and the abuse of the prosecutorial process;
- The Court erred in its evaluation of the evidence placed before it by the respondents, particularly in failing to accept the President’s allegations and those of the NDPP, which were undisputed or were not meaningfully disputed by the applicant;
- It also erred in finding that Mr Mpshe’s decision was a consequence of his (subjective) feelings of anger and betrayal and that those feelings caused him to act impulsively and irrationally;
- The Court erred in finding that Mr Mpshe was subjected to undue pressure which deprived him of the time and space to properly apply his mind to the matter;
- The Court erred as matters of fact and law in accepting that the ‘Browse Mole Report’ revealed an unofficial attempt to besmirch the person and integrity of the President, but failing to conclude on the available evidence that the Report compromised the fairness and integrity of the prosecution process entitling the NDPP to terminate the prosecution.
“President Zuma believes that the appeal raises important issues of law and fact and also believes that the appeal has reasonable prospects of success,” the presidency said.
On Monday, NPA head Shaun Abrahams said that the prosecuting authority would be appealing the ruling, looking past this case alone.
Abrahams said that the ruling brought into question the independence of the prosecutorial process, and had far-reaching implications for all prosecutions that were handled by the NPA.
“I believe it needs the decision of an appeal court,” Abrahams said.
The DA said that the appeals are a delay tactic by the NPA to protect Zuma from having his day in court. The party previously stated that it expects the matter to ultimately reach the Constitutional Court.
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