FORMER president Jacob Zuma has been ordered to serve 15-month prison sentence for contempt of court.
The Constitutional Court has given Zuma five days to present himself to the local Nkandla or Johannesburg Central police stations in order to be arrested.
The apex court said if Zuma fails to submit himself to the police as ordered, the Minister of Police Bheki Cele and the National Commissioner of Police Khehla Sithole must take all necessary steps in law to ensure that he is delivered to a correctional centre to commence sentence imposed.
In a hard-hitting judgment on Tuesday, Constitutional Court justice Sisi Khampepe said Zuma’s unfounded attacks on the judiciary cannot be met with impunity, and are not tolerable in a democratic dispensation.
“The majority finds itself with little choice but to send a message that this type of “recalcitrance and defiance is unlawful and will be punished,” said Khampepe.
“The only appropriate sanction is a direct unsuspended order of imprisonment – although this cannot capture the damage Zuma had done to the judiciary.”
Khampepe added: “This case is exceptional. Not in that Zuma is being treated exceptionally – but that the matrix of factors requires an exceptional sanction. Unfounded attacks on the courts cannot be met with impunity. Zuma’s attacks on the judiciary are not substantiated and are not tolerable in our democratic dispensation”
The court was handing down judgment in the application by the commission of inquiry into State Capture that Zuma be held in contempt of court for failing to comply with the court’s earlier order in January to obey the commission’s summons to appear and give evidence from February 15 to 19.
The State Capture Inquiry is examining allegations of high-level graft during Zuma’s presidency.
Zuma denies wrongdoing and has so far not cooperated, but his legal options appear to have run out.
Zuma is being tried on separate corruption charges relating to a $2 billion arms deal with French defence firm Thales in 1999, when he was deputy president.
The charges were reinstated in March 2018, a month after the ANC kicked him out of office after a presidency marked by graft allegations and sovereign credit rating downgrades.
The former leader rejects all allegations as a politically motivated witch-hunt.
- This is a developing story|
- Inside Politics
