Former president Jacob Zuma, in a desperate battle to avoid paying back about R16m in legal fees incurred by taxpayers in his fight to avoid corruption charges, has accused the judges who ordered him to repay the funds of political bias.
Zuma, who is also facing a lawsuit from former minister Derek Hanekom after he suggested the latter had been an apartheid spy, has filed papers challenging the 2018 ruling by the high court in Pretoria. He says the courts should “never” criticise or condemn him over his multiple legal bids. Forcing him to pay back the money is an unfair violation of his constitutional rights, he says.
“I should never be criticised or condemned by the courts for lawfully exercising my constitutional rights,” Zuma states in an application to appeal against the ruling filed at the Supreme Court of Appeal on Monday. “I therefore dispute and deny that I was litigating for the sake of it.”
Zuma is petitioning the Supreme Court of Appeal for the right to challenge a ruling that he
is not lawfully entitled to state sponsorship of his legal costs in his corruption trial, and must pay back the money already spent on such costs.
The DA and EFF applied for state funding for the defence in Zuma’s corruption trial, which relates to corruption in the 1990s arms deal, to be cut off because, they argued, he was accused of crimes aimed at enriching himself and had nothing to do with his official duties either as MEC in KwaZulu-Natal or as president of the country.
Zuma suggested that the high court judges were biased, comments that may lead to further unease about political attacks on the country’s judiciary. The judiciary is perceived to have escaped state capture during Zuma’s time in office, famously finding against him in the dispute over former public protector Thuli Madonsela’s report on the funding of improvements at his Nkandla residence.
Zuma’s comments on the judges come just days after EFF leader Julius Malema launched his owned veiled attack on Pretoria high court judges who gave rulings in favour of President Cyril Ramaphosa and public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan in their respective legal battles with public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane.
The high court, in its response to the DA and EFF, had given “more weight to the political interests of the political parties involved than advancing my constitutional rights”, Zuma said.
The former president, who has said he cannot afford to pay his lawyers, has previously described some of the judgments against him as “funny”, and said that a “fair and independent and impartial mind” would recognise that he only went to the courts to “protect my constitutional rights that are at risk or threatened”.
The high court rejected his first attempt at appealing against that decision, on the basis that an appeal did not have reasonable prospects of success. But Zuma is convinced that he should be allowed to appeal against the ruling, which he argues has left him “unable to pay my legal costs” and “placed my legal defence at risk”. He argues he is legally entitled to state funding of his defence costs because the corruption he stands accused of arose from his position in government.
He faces charges over his allegedly corrupt relationship with his former financial adviser Schabir Shaik, who was convicted of keeping him on a corrupt retainer to do his bidding.
That bidding allegedly included Zuma accepting a R500,000 a year bribe from French arms company Thales, in exchange for protection from any potential arms deal inquiry.