A commission investigating allegations of widespread high-level corruption in South Africa has asked the country’s Constitutional Court to commit former president Jacob Zuma to two years in prison for contempt of court.
The Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, commonly known as the Zondo Commission of Inquiry, filed an urgent application to the Constitutional Court on Monday seeking an order to have Zuma arrested for ignoring an earlier order forcing him to appear before the commission.
Zuma has boycotted commission hearings, claiming the panel chairman and Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo is biased against him.
The formed president took this complaint to the Constitutional Court last month in which he sought an order removing Zondo from the panel.
The country’s highest court however dismissed his application and ordered the former president to return to the witness stand at the inquiry.
This decision did not please Zuma who attacked both the commission and the Constitutional Court that they were pandering to politicians’ whims in their decisions against him.
Monday’s court application by the Zondo Commission of Inquiry coincided with a call by President Cyril Ramaphosa on the same day for some of the country’s leaders not to undermine South Africa’s judiciary with their inconsiderate public utterances with the potential to destabilise the rule of law.
JN/APA