South Africa’s former President Jacob Zuma was ready to spend time in prison than obey the country’s Constitutional Court’s ruling ordering him to return to the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture as a witness in its proceedings, APA learnt on Thursday.
Zuma said this in a letter replying to the country’s Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng following a request last week from the Constitutional Court asking him to name the “appropriate punishment” should he be found guilty of contempt of court for his continued refusal to attend the commission’s hearings, for which the Constitutional Court had found him at fault.
The Commission had demanded that Zuma, if found guilty of contempt of court for failing to obey its order to return to its hearings, should be locked up for two years as punishment and an example to other witnesses defying court orders to attend the inquiry.
Responding to the Commission’s request, the Constitutional Court wrote Zuma to ask him to advise it on what type of punishment the court should impose on him if found guilty for his contempt of court charge as complained by the inquiry commission.
Zuma’s response, contained in a letter to the Chief Justice, said he was ready to become a “prisoner of the Constitutional Court.”
Responding in a 21-page letter, the former president said he could not assist the court in violating his rights, adding that the Constitutional Court was abusing its judicial authority and engaging in politics by entertaining the commission’s complaint against him.
“My objection is legitimate as it is sourced directly from the Constitution itself and what it promises,” the former president said in the letter released on social media.
Commission chair and Deputy Chief Justice, Raymond Zondo, and the entire judiciary system were politically and personally biased against him during the proceedings, he charged.
While the Chief Justice has yet to respond to the letter, Zuma has vowed to stay away from the inquiry to testify as a witness following corruption allegations against him when he was president of the country till February 2018.
NM/as/APA