As the day winds down and you stare at the clock spare a thought for the legal team of Jacob Zuma, who don’t seem to get a moment’s rest.
Yesterday the Supreme Court of Appeals granted JZ’s legal team the opportunity to argue why he should be permitted to appeal the Spy Tapes ruling (HERE), and today that legal team has once again been at it.
Here’s TimesLive:
President Jacob Zuma has stopped Public Protector Thuli Madonsela from releasing the draft report on her investigation into state capture, after he served her with a notice of intention to interdict her.
Zuma served Madonsela with the notice on Thursday, which will mean the Public Protector will not be able to release the report on Friday, as she had planned.
The application to interdict is due to be heard in court on Tuesday.
A source in Madonsela’s office said: “We cannot proceed to release the report until the court has decided whether or not to grant the interdict.”
Zuma has squirmed out of meeting with Thuli a few times already, with the Public Protector releasing this statement Monday after his latest attempt.
“Public Protector Madonsela has noted the statement from the Presidency, issued on Monday, October 10, 2016.
“The Public Protector would like to report that President Jacob Zuma was afforded a proper opportunity to tender his evidence since 22/03/2016.
“President Zuma was on Saturday, October 01, 2016, given all copies of evidence implicating him.
“His lawyer raised a request to question witnesses for the first time on Thursday, October 06, 2016 when he was asking for a deferment of the investigation to the next Public Protector.
“It’s of concern to the Public Protector that President has on two occasions undertaken to answer questions and when the time arose, he changed his mind.”
The term ‘running scared’ comes to mind, so I guess we can only hope that new Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane takes as hard a line as Thuli has.
For now, again, it looks like Zuma is temporarily off the hook.
