Celani Sikhakhane
Jacob Zuma’s legal team will be heading to the Supreme Court of Appeal on Monday to try to overturn the ruling which found his release on medical parole unlawful.
In December last year, the Gauteng High Court ruled that Zuma’s medical parole was unlawful and he should be taken back to prison to continue serving his 15-month sentence.
The court also granted the former president leave to appeal that sentence.
His lawyers then filed papers at the Supreme Court of Appeal to try to get the ruling overturned.
Zuma served only two months of his sentence before he was released by then correctional services commissioner Arthur Fraser, whose term ended shortly afterwards.
Fraser made his decision despite opposition from the Medical Parole Advisory Board which stated that the former president did not suffer from a terminal illness.
The Helen Suzman Foundation and the Democratic Alliance filed court papers in Gauteng to challenge his release.
Zuma has been serving his sentence from his kwaDakwadunuse home in Nkandla under correctional supervision.
He was arrested after the Constitutional Court found him to be in contempt of court by failing to appear before the Zondo Commission for State Capture.
DA leader John Steenhuisen said that he will be attending the case in Bloemfontein with his party’s Free State leadership.
“The DA will attend the hearing to ensure that the rule of law is upheld in this case, and that the former president Jacob Zuma serves his 15-month jail sentence for contempt of court in the lead-up to his corruption trial in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on 17 October 2022,” he said.
Last month Zuma’s daughter Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla revealed that the Correctional Services authorities had banned her father from travelling from Nkandla to Durban.
“They have tried to ban my father from travelling to Durban as part of his supervision. We know that the plan was to refuse him from attending the ANC KZN ninth elective conference since the instruction was given a week before the conference date,” she said.
