Staff Reporter.
Former president Jacob Zuma has refused to allow NPA doctors to examine him, his foundation said.
Earlier this month, and with the full agreement of Zuma’s advocate Dali Mpofu, KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Pietermaritzburg Judge Piet Koen ordered that the State “may grant a medical practitioner of its choice to examine Zuma to assess his ability to stand trial for corruption and for that doctor to be a witness, if necessary”.
But JG Zuma Foundation spokesperson Mzwanele Manyi has now accused the State of “second guessing” the medical report produced by the military doctors responsible for the former president’s care – as well as the care of all other heads of state – by seeking to have him examined by their own doctors.
Manyi said that Zuma’s military doctors “had every right to be very aggrieved” by the NPA’s insistence that its own doctors must be allowed to examine Zuma. This, he suggested, amounted to one arm of the State disbelieving another.
“They are saying [to the military doctors]: we don’t believe you… your professional integrity means nothing,” Manyi said. “What nonsense is this?”
Zuma was hospitalised earlier this month, while serving a jail term for defying a Constitutional Court ruling. The apex court is expected to rule on his application for a rescission of that judgment in the coming days.
In the meantime, Zuma’s lawyers were scheduled to begin arguing his application for a “special plea”, in which he contends that the entire NPA is too biased to try him for corruption and he should be acquitted of all the charges against him. That plea has now been put on hold – because of Zuma’s undisclosed medical issues.
While the State agreed to a previous postponement of Zuma’s trial following his hospitalisation, it has made it clear that it may oppose the former president seeking a longer postponement of his trial.
The former president is facing 16 counts of fraud, corruption, money laundering and racketeering.
Zuma is at a military hospital outside the Estcourt prison, where he is serving a 15-month sentence for contempt of the Constitutional Court order that he testify before the state capture inquiry.