The wheels of justice turn slowly, but probably not slowly enough for South Africa’s scandal-plagued president.
Jacob Zuma’s court dates have piled up in recent years, along with seemingly endless appeals in what his allies have termed his “Stalingrad strategy” of contesting every judgment, no matter the futility. On December 13th, in the latest damning decision, a high court ordered Mr Zuma to set up a judicial inquiry into allegations of “state capture” against him, his son Duduzane and their friends.
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| Jacob Zuma Loses Two Court Cases In One Day |
A few hours earlier the court ruled in a separate decision that Mr Zuma had abused the judicial process by trying to block an anti-corruption ombudsman, Thuli Madonsela, from releasing a report on state capture in late 2016. It ordered that Mr Zuma must personally pay the legal fees in both cases.
It is not clear whether Mr Zuma will appeal even these, as he did another judgment a week earlier in which the courts fired his appointee as head of the national prosecutors’ office and took away the president’s power to name a replacement. The judges thought that since Mr Zuma faces 783 charges of corruption, he might not be entirely neutral in the matter. Instead they said the task should fall to the deputy president, Cyril Ramaphosa ... Jacob Zuma Loses Two Court Cases In One Day.
It is not clear whether Mr Zuma will appeal even these, as he did another judgment a week earlier in which the courts fired his appointee as head of the national prosecutors’ office and took away the president’s power to name a replacement. The judges thought that since Mr Zuma faces 783 charges of corruption, he might not be entirely neutral in the matter. Instead they said the task should fall to the deputy president, Cyril Ramaphosa ... Jacob Zuma Loses Two Court Cases In One Day.
