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Former President Jacob Zuma is unlikely to appear on November 16 as his team plans a request for disqualification from Judge Raymond Zondo.
After flipping the state’s capture commission of inquiry for two years, former President Jacob Zuma got under way when the president, Judge Raymond Zondo, authorized the legal team to issue subpoenas to compel him to appear from 16 to November 20, 2020.
On Friday October 9 at 10.31, Zondo said: “I am pleased that a suitable case has been presented for the commission secretary to sign and issue a subpoena for Mr. Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma appear before the Commission at 10:00 a.m. on November 16th to November 20th”. The judge ordered Zuma to testify electronically from his home in Nkandla, as he used his age as a factor for the transmission of Covid-19 and a reason for not attending the Commission in September 2020. The commission must stop hearing testimonies in December, so Zondo can write his report before the state’s capture investigation ends in 2021.
But Zuma is unlikely to agree as his team plans to petition the Commission for Zondo to recuse himself. If the judge refuses, Zuma’s team intends to petition the Gauteng High Court to compel him to do so. His legal team believes that once a disqualification request is triggered, Zuma cannot be compelled to appear before the commission.
“Thirty-four witnesses have implicated Mr. Zuma,” said the commission’s chief legal counsel, Paul Pretorius, while defending the granting of a subpoena, adding that “common law has a duty that compels the Commission to call to Mr. Zuma to answer. ” This Commission has issued more than 2,500 subpoenas, of which 99 were for the appearance of witnesses. It is a necessary mechanism for this commission to do its job ”.
Pretorius said Zuma’s testimony was crucial because he is named in four direct commission terms of reference and in two indirect terms: he is a prominent witness to understanding the state’s capture. “Mr. Zuma’s evidence is necessary and desirable for the Commission’s work. Many, if not most, of the acts of state capture occurred during his tenure, “said Pretorius.
Zondo has resisted summoning Zuma despite the former president leading the Commission in a joyous dance.
He has been asked to provide his version of events since September 13, 2018, after former GCIS CEO Themba Maseko testified about influence peddling by him on behalf of the Gupta family, who wanted him to government advertiser will place campaigns in their media. In April 2019, he was invited to respond to various testimonies that had implicated him and appeared in July 2019.
At that three-day appearance in July, he did not respond to any substantive questions, but chose to testify to several long-standing alleged conspiracies against him. Zuma said then that he was withdrawing from any involvement in the commission, but after an agreement was reached in the Zondo chambers, his team agreed to stay.
Long way to a summons
Following the July 2019 settlement, the Commission repeatedly wrote to Zuma’s legal team requesting their affidavit (in response to verbal assertions they made about broadcaster Redi Tlhabi), seeking to establish three more appearances and requesting their version for dozens. of testimonies involved. Zuma first cited his trial for dealing with weapons and then a disease that should not appear and, in January 2020, the legal team of the Commission prepared a request for a preliminary summons that Zondo contacted again preferring the negotiation on the confrontation.
In September, Zondo’s patience began to run out: “… they (Zuma’s lawyer) had interpreted that they would be dates agreed upon with them and I made it clear that I decide the dates.”
On Friday, October 9, the judge was tense but determined: he ruminated aloud on several occasions about the testimonies he had heard implicating Zuma (the dismissal of former Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene, the Gupta family’s attempt to bribe the former Deputy Minister from Finance Mcebisi Jonas, various testimonies from Eskom alleging Zuma meddling) and how he would fight to do his job without the testimony of the former head of state.
“All of these things cannot be ignored. I can’t ignore those things if I’m going to do my job, ”Zondo said at one point during the subpoena request hearing.
Later, he said:
“Yes, based on the information available to me, there is no doubt that if I form an opinion that a particular person may have or has knowledge of matters relevant to my investigations, I must take steps so that that person come and testify. If I don’t do that, I will be failing in my duty. ”
To which Pretorius replied: “There is a choice not to answer for a witness, but there is no right not to come to a commission.”
Zuma’s legal team is preparing a request for Zondo to recuse himself, and once it is released, they believe he will put the subpoena on legal hold.
It is going to be an ugly fight as the former president intends to raise his previous personal relationship with the judge as one of the recusal factors.
In a four-page letter to Zondo in September, Zuma’s attorney, Eric Mabuza, accused the judge of bias and lack of bias; He wrote that the former president had doubts about the legality of the Commission even though he appointed and signed it.
Posing a spectrum of arguments to come, the letter to Zondo says:
“President Zuma believes that the source of the president’s bias against him is due to the fact that the president and the president have personal, family, and professional historical relationships that the president should have publicly disclosed before accepting his appointment.” DM
