President Cyril Ramaphosa, in court papers, says Jacob Zuma “has no right” to pursue an illegal prosecution against him.
Ramaphosa was replying to the former president's affidavit in his bid to put a permanent end to Zuma’s private prosecution against him. He has already obtained an interim interdict which prevented any further steps in the prosecution, and now wants the Johannesburg high court to make the interim interdict final.
The president has sought to set aside the charges on a number of grounds, including that the prosecution has no prospects of succeeding, and was brought with an ulterior purpose.
Zuma has charged Ramaphosa as “an accessory after the fact” and, alternatively, for defeating the ends of justice. The charge is connected to a separate private prosecution he brought against prosecutor Billy Downer SC and journalist Karyn Maughan, who he charged with breaching the National Prosecuting Authority Act because Downer gave Maughan a report concerning Zuma’s health status that was later disclosed in court.
He then charged Ramaphosa as an accessory after the fact because when his lawyers wrote to Ramaphosa and asked him to investigate the conduct of officials in the NPA about how they handled the medical report, Ramaphosa had failed to do so.
In his answering affidavit, Zuma said he had made out a prima facie case for the crime.
“The bottom line is that there is a sufficient prima facie case which meets the definitional elements of the offence, albeit based on conduct in the form of an omission which is underpinned by a duty to act in terms of, inter alia, section 84(2)(f) of the constitution,” said Zuma.
Section 84(2)(f) of the constitution says the president is responsible for appointing commissions of inquiry.
Replying, Ramaphosa said: “There is no case against me, prima facie or otherwise.”
Breaking down Zuma’s charges against him, he said Zuma’s case was that he had omitted to take action and failed to institute an inquiry against the officials of the NPA “and thereby wrongfully, unlawfully and intentionally acted in furtherance of the commission of an offence or failed to take any steps to bring the perpetrators and/or accomplices to justice”.
Given that what was communicated to me was clearly to my understanding not a criminal issue, it cannot be said on any reasonable grounds or understanding that I intentionally conspired to assist anyone to evade criminal liability
— President Cyril Ramaphosa
From the letter received from Zuma’s lawyers, what the former president wanted urgently investigated was “conduct that he believed exhibited the second-guessing of the medical reports that he presented or discrimination against those reports”.
But “Mr Zuma knew that I do not have the constitutional or statutory authority to investigate alleged crimes”, said Ramaphosa.
There was a further reason he could not investigate alleged criminal conduct: it was already the subject of ongoing criminal proceedings — Zuma's own private prosecution, which Downer and Maughan were also litigating over. “I could not lawfully institute a parallel process,” he said.
Ramaphosa said he understood Zuma’s complaint, in the letter, was one of allegations of ethical breaches by NPA officials. On that, Ramaphosa had acted, he said. He had asked justice minister Ronald Lamola to investigate. Zuma knew this, he said.
“Given that what was communicated to me was clearly to my understanding not a criminal issue, it cannot be said on any reasonable grounds or understanding that I intentionally conspired to assist anyone to evade criminal liability,” he said.
He also said that section 84(2) of the constitution gave him the power, as president, to appoint commissions of inquiry. “There is nothing in law that renders the non-appointment of such a commission on the dictates of a citizen a crime.”
“The complaint against me in these circumstances could never constitute a criminal offence.”
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