By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) will be seeking to take further legal action to challenge the release of former president Jacob Zuma as part of a “remission process” aimed at addressing overcrowding in prisons.
Department of Correctional Services acting national commissioner, Makgothi Thobakgale, said during a briefing on Friday that it was decided that Zuma should return to the Estcourt Correctional Centre in KwaZulu-Natal.
He was released on medical parole in September 2021.
At the same briefing, Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola said that Zuma had benefitted from the special remission President Cyril Ramaphosa had approved.
Political parties believe the sequence of events was too aligned and suspicious not to think that Ramaphosa had specifically designed the special remission programme to align with Zuma’s return to prison.
ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba has accused Ramaphosa of making a mockery of the country’s criminal justice system.
Mashaba said the release of 9,488 criminals as a disguise to save Zuma from serving another day in prison proves that the rule of law does not apply to those in power.
He believes this was a political solution to the problem of Zuma having to return to prison.
“The criminal and civil justice system relies on the principle of ensuring that there are consequences for unlawful acts,” said Mashaba.
“President Zuma knowingly and deliberately defied our apex court, and publicly demonstrated his disdain for the legal system. Instead of affirming the supremacy of the tule of law in South Africa, by ensuring that Zuma accounts for his actions, Ramaphosa’s government has bent over backwards to allow him to evade the consequences of these actions”.
“Surprise, surprise, he is the first beneficiary of a brand new policy,” said John Steenhuisen, the leader of main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance.”This is a cynical manipulation of the justice system.”
The African National Congress (ANC) welcomed Zuma’s remission status. ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri said the decision should not be read in a manner that projects the country as a failed state.
“We welcome the decision on the remission of sentence of president Jacob Zuma alongside a number of offenders. We are confident in the resilience and robustness of our judiciary and law enforcement agencies. We have no reason to doubt our judiciary, and there is no truth that there is failed state,” she said.
In 2021, more than 350 people died in some of the worst violence the country has seen since the final days of apartheid in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as rioting swept across Zuma’s home province of Kwa-Zulu Natal and the economic hub province of Gauteng.
Government had deployed the army to provide extra security in four provinces last month when the Constitutional Court ruled that Zuma’s early release on medical parole was improper, and security forces were on high alert again this week.