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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
As a result, Zuma is\u00a0also arguing that the DA is not entitled to any records explaining his decision to fire Gordhan.<\/p>\n
Controversially, the President’s legal team also submitted papers\u00a0instructing the DA to hand over the intelligence report as described in its court filings – indicating that President Zuma plans to deny its existence.<\/p>\n
While there have been several longstanding rumours that an \u2018intelligence report\u2019 was used to fire Gordhan\u00a0,\u00a0Zuma\u2019s official explanation for firing Gordhan was that there was\u00a0an irretrievable breakdown in the working relationship between the two.<\/p>\n