Former president Jacob Zuma could be employing delaying tactics and creating technical issues in his corruption trial to rely on them later when things do not go in his favour.
This is the view shared by two legal experts after Zuma on Monday applied for a postponement of his court case arguing that a virtual hearing would amount to an unfair trial.
Zuma’s trial was due to resume on Monday with the court hearing argument on his special plea that prosecutor Billy Downer be removed from prosecuting him.
But owing to last week’s unrest in KwaZulu-Natal after Zuma’s arrest for contempt of court, the court asked for the possibility of the hearing being virtual. Zuma’s lawyers, however, applied to postpone the matter, saying a virtual hearing would breach his rights to a fair trial, including the Right of an accused person to be present when being tried.
Law expert Dr Llewellyn Curlewis from the University of Pretoria told Sowetan Zuma was “trying to play for time”.
He said he believed Zuma could be trying to create “lots of technical issues” that he could rely on at the end of the trial should he be found guilty.
“If he was to find any technical issue he could later on use to take this matter on review or appeal, the more issues the more possibilities he will have to pursue that avenue if he’s found guilty... definitely that’s the strategy,” Curlewis said.
Another legal expert, Ulrich Roux said Zuma was using the same strategy he had successfully used over the years.
“It's most likely that he’s trying to frustrate the process again... we’ve seen Zuma do this on numerous occasions, successfully so, the one difficulty now that he has is that he is in custody,” Roux said.
Roux said virtual court hearings were not avoidable as we are “living in unprecedented times” due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Advocate Dali Mpofu, who represents Zuma, argued that the Disaster Management Act rules were unconstitutional as both the constitution and the Criminal Procedures Act directed that an accused person be present in court in a criminal matter.
The former president is serving a 15-month jail term at the Estcourt correctional centre.
Mpofu argued before judge Piet Koen that the Disaster Management Act was being used to take away Zuma’s rights to a fair trial, including being able to consult with his lawyers.
He argued that those rights were even guaranteed during wars or floods for an accused person to be able to be present.
“Just from logic and common sense, if those rights cannot be taken away even under a state of emergency, we know that the so-called Disaster Management Act is something less than the state of emergency,” Mpofu said.
Advocate Wim Trengove, representing the National Prosecuting Authority, accused Zuma of using delaying tactics he has relied on for years to avoid going to trial for his corruption case.
“The accused [Zuma] has for more than 10 years taken every point in the book to avoid having his day in court. He desperately seeks to avoid answering the charges of corruption, fraud and money laundering against him,” argued Trengove.
“He raises objections again and again. The objections raised on Tuesday are objections which he raised and were decided against by the Supreme Court of Appeal in the spy tapes case and by the full bench in the stay of prosecution.”
Judge Koen reserved his judgment until 10am on Tuesday.
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