South Africa’s Pietermaritzburg High Court was on Tuesday expected to hear former president Jacob Zuma’s urgent application for a stay of his arrest pending his application in the Constitutional Court next week.
The Constitutional Court will hear Zuma’s rescission application on Monday next week, the court said.
Zuma is arguing that he is at high risk due to his medical condition and age.
“Sending me to jail during the height of a pandemic at my age is the same as sentencing me to death,” Zuma said.
“The death sentence was declared unconstitutional in South Africa in 1995 as a result of my own sacrifices and those of millions of South Africans,” he said.
He also claimed that he was sentenced without trial.
He was given 15 months for ignoring its ruling that he continued his testimony before the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, Zuma said.
The founding affidavit was, therefore, given High Court to argue that the court heard the matter on the basis that Zuma was domiciled within the court’s area of jurisdiction.
Zuma argued to have handed himself over to authorities at midnight on Sunday to start serving his 15-month sentence for contempt of court. But this did not happen,
The embattled former president told journalists at the weekend that it was his right to choose not to appear before Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, reiterating his view that Zondo was biased against him.
NM/jn/APA