The Jacob Zuma Foundation has welcomed the ruling by South Africa’s North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria that former president Jacob Zuma should approach the Supreme Court of Appeal in his quest to block an earlier court order sending him back to prison to complete serving a 15-month sentence.
The Jacob Zuma Foundation, whose legal team took to the High Court with the complaint, has welcomed Tuesday’s ruling in favour Zuma.
The High Court had last week ordered Zuma to return to jail after it set aside his parole for being “unlawful” because it did not follow the required procedures needed to be granted the freedom.
Zuma’s spokesperson Mzwanele Manyi said the latest High Court ruling showed that justice was “heading in the right direction.”
Zuma and his legal team could now head to the Supreme Court of Appeal, which they hope would make a different finding to that of the High Court.
Zuma was jailed in July for contempt of court when he defied the Constitutional Court’s ruling requesting him to attend the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture at its meetings in Johannesburg.
The move to lock up the former president angered his supporters, who went on a rampage of trashing business districts and private property in KwaZulu Natal and Gauteng provinces for two weeks, overwhelming the police who were called in to quell the riots.
President Cyril Ramaphosa was forced to bring in 25,000 troops to assist the police end the looting and fighting that ended the lives of over 300 people and resulted in damages estimated at more than US$2 billion.
NM/jn/APA