It’s D-Day for former President Jacob Zuma. Acting Correctional Services Commissioner Makgothi Thobakgale will make a decision by Thursday on whether or not he’s returning to prison.
In June 2021, the Constitutional Court sentenced Zuma to 15 months behind bars for contempt after he had flouted its previous order to appear before the State Capture Commission of Inquiry.
Just two months in, though, he was released on medical parole.
Both the High Court and then the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) subsequently found this was unlawful.
And last month, the Constitutional Court dismissed a bid to overturn the latter’s ruling.
But that ruling left it up to Thobakgale to decide if the time Zuma had spent on medical parole should still count as time served, regardless.
In a statement last week, acting Correctional Services Commissioner Makgothi Thobakgale’s office said he would make a decision by Thursday.
What that decision will be, remains to be seen.
But in the meantime, the prospect of Zuma making a return to prison has spurred fears of a repeat of the 2021 unrest that followed his initial incarceration.
It’s important to remember why the Constitutional Court took the unprecedented step of sending a former president to prison in the first place, though.
Justice Sisi Khampepe, in the majority judgment, said: “If the impression were to be created that court orders are not binding, or can be flouted with impunity, the future of the Judiciary, and the rule of law, would indeed be bleak.”
At the time the Constitutional Court’s ruling was handed down last month, Zuma was in Russia receiving medical treatment. He has since returned to South Africa, though.
-EWN
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