President Zuma to appeal judgement ordering him to explain Gordhan firing
President Jacob Zuma has confirmed that he will appeal last week’s High Court decision, ordering him to explain his reasons for firing former finance minister Pravin Gordhan.
His legal team are arguing that the presiding Judge Vally’s interpretation of the Rule 53 and the requirements that the president to provide reasons for his administrative action constituted a breach of a separation of powers doctrine.
This is a fundamental principle of South Africa’s legal system and requires the executive (president), legislature and judiciary to act separately from one another to maintain a system of checks and balances.
As a result, Zuma is also arguing that the DA is not entitled to any records explaining his decision to fire Gordhan.
Controversially, the President’s legal team also submitted papers instructing the DA to hand over the intelligence report as described in its court filings – indicating that President Zuma plans to deny its existence.
While there have been several longstanding rumours that an ‘intelligence report’ was used to fire Gordhan , Zuma’s official explanation for firing Gordhan was that there was an irretrievable breakdown in the working relationship between the two.
Read: Confusion as Zuma’s lawyers order the DA to hand over “intelligence report”
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