THE Pretoria High Court has ordered former President Jacob Zuma be returned to jail after ruling that the medical parole he was granted in September by former Correctional Services commissioner Arthur Fraser was unlawful.
The court ordered that Zuma, 79, “be returned to the custody of the Department of Correctional Services” to serve out the remainder of his 15-month sentence.
Judge Keoagile Matojane handed down the scathing judgment on Wednesday.
“The decision of the first respondent Arthur Fraser, to place the third respondent Zuma, on medical parole is reviewed, declared unlawful and set aside,” said Matojane.
Both Zuma and Fraser have also been ordered to pay the cost of the applicants.
Zuma, who was convicted of contempt of court earlier this year, was granted medical parole after serving less than two months in jail.
The Helen Suzman Foundation challenged the decision.
The jailing of Zuma in July was the catalyst for the worst civil unrest in South Africa since the country’s first non-racial elections in 1994.
The violence left at least 354 people dead.
Zuma can appeal Wednesday’s ruling.
“This is tantamount to the death sentence which was abolished in 1995 in South Africa,” Zuma’s lawyers said about Motajane’s ruling on Wednesday.
Zuma’s lawyers said that they have overwhelmingly good prospects of successfully appealing Matojane’s ruling “given the nature of the case, the life-threatening implications of the judgment and the public interest in equality before the law, ubuntu and other values of the new era”.
After Zuma’s lawyers filed the notice for leave to appeal the ruling, the Department of Correctional Services announced that it was also going to appeal Motajane’s judgment.
“The DCS will be appealing the judgment handed down by the Gauteng Division of the High Court, Pretoria, on the medical parole placement of Former President, Mr. Jacob Zuma,” said the department.
“Having carefully studied the judgment, DCS is convinced that another court may arrive at a different conclusion. DCS is of the view that the court sadly misinterpreted the Correctional Services Act and erred in declaring the decision of the national commissioner to place Mr. Zuma on medical parole to be unlawful and setting it aside. We will outline the grounds of appeal in the papers that we will be filing in court in due course.”
