By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Department of Correctional Services (DCS) says it will appeal the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) ruling that former president Jacob Zuma’s release on medical parole was unlawful.
“Having carefully studied the judgment, Correctional Services is convinced that another court may arrive at a different conclusion. DCS is considering this course on the basis of the interpretation and application of the Correctional Services Act and other relevant prescripts,” said spokesperson Singabakho Nxumalo in a statement on Wednesday evening.
The SCA on Monday dismissed with costs Zuma’s appeal against the setting aside of his medical parole by the Pretoria High Court.
Zuma and the Department of Correctional Services had appealed the high court’s ruling in December last year, which set aside the decision by former Correctional Services national commissioner, Arthur Fraser, to grant him medical parole.
The former president was handed a 15 month jail sentence by the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) for contempt after he refused to testify at the Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture.
After spending two months at the Estcourt Correctional Centre in KwaZulu-Natal, Fraser released Zuma on medical grounds, despite the Medical Parole Advisory Board’s recommendation not to release the former president from jail.
The application to review Zuma’s medical parole was lodged by the Democratic Alliance (DA), the Helen Suzman Foundation and Afriforum.
Meanwhile ANC presidential hopeful Zweli Mkhize described Zuma’s impending return to prison, as painful and an unnecessary punishment for an 80 year old.
Mkhize gave a political lecture in Katlehong, east of Johannesburg, on Wednesday a day after he was announced as a nominee for the ANC presidency.
He equated the recent anger about the parole release of SACP leader Chris Hani’s killer Janusz Walus with Zuma’s possible return to prison.
Mkhize said these two incidents were a painful reminder of the possible moral bankruptcy of the country.
“I still don’t understand what it would mean to take an 80-year-old man and take him back to prison. I respect the courts and the law. If president Zuma was in prison and he was turning 80, he would be told to get out of prison. Now he must go back to prison.”
Mkhize recalled how Zuma’s prison sentence had been partly blamed for the July unrest in 2021, which saw widespread looting in parts of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.