EDITORIAL | Yet another trial as we wait to find out if Zuma is really sick

It’s now just more than a month ago when former president Jacob Zuma ascended a mobile stage outside his Nkandla homestead to thank his supporters for rising up against an “unjust” order of the Constitutional Court to incarcerate him. 

For about 38 minutes, various speakers hailed him and asked “wenzeni uZuma (What did Zuma do)?”. Throughout the episode, the former president was on his feet. He neither needed a chair nor help standing.

When he spoke, he was his usual animated self. He treated his audience to a rendition of his call to arms piece, uMshini Wam. He cracked jokes about outgoing chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng. He regaled his audience about how former Western Cape-based judge Siraj Desai was to be appointed and this was changed at the last minute and deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo was then brought in as someone to chair the commission into state capture.

He complained about the constitutional court’s handling of his matter. He said he was happy to see that many South Africans were opposed to injustice, which he said was why they came to support him. 

More directly, Zuma was at his conspiratorial best. The microphone in his left hand while the right one was clenched and airborne as he danced to uMshini Wam. Unbeknown to the rest of society, the talkative and dancing former president had suffered a “traumatic injury” eight months earlier (on November 28 last year). According to Brig-Gen Dr Mcebisi Zukile Mdutywa, Zuma was not in a position to proceed with the corruption trial that was to get under way on Tuesday – and will not be for the next six months. 

What may he be suffering from that allows him to ascend a stage and, for 38 minutes, engage with those sharing messages of support and then deliver his own speech, inclusive of his favourite tune, but can’t sit down in a court to listen to evidence against him? Well, we might find out later. 

Anyone surprised at the postponement? We don’t think many will be. We certainly are not. For someone who has spent the last 18 years – let’s repeat that – 18 years – ensuring his own trial does not get under way, earning in the process rebukes from some judges who labelled his legal strategy Stalingrad, this should not surprise anyone. 

To say this is not to say he has faked his illness. Far from it. He may well be sick. But there is nothing to assuage a skeptical audience otherwise – and his history of delaying tactics does not help matters.

What may he be suffering from that allows him to ascend a stage and, for 38 minutes, engage with those sharing messages of support and then deliver his own speech, inclusive of his favourite tune, but can’t sit down in a court to listen to evidence against him?

What’s worse is that his lawyers argued a few weeks ago that it would be a violation of his rights for his trial to be conducted online, insisting on his presence in court. Sceptics, surely, will now, assisted by hindsight, say that this was deliberately done to coincide with his now confirmed inability to attend, forcing the judge’s hand to postpone the case. While there is no evidence that a deterioration of his health, if at all it is that, was anticipated, it creates grounds for reasonable suspicion. This is why the judge, in our view, correctly decided on Tuesday that Zuma’s doctors must provide a comprehensive report on his medical condition by August 20 and, if it’s not satisfactory, the state will cross-examine his doctors and call its own experts. 

In short, we seem set for yet another trial within a trial to establish whether or not Zuma is really sick. This is after another trial within a trial on whether conducting his criminal trial online constitutes a violation of his rights was averted after judge Piet Koen agreed that he must be physically present. All of these precede another trial within a trial involving whether or not his prosecutors, specifically Billy Downer, must recuse himself because of bias. 

With the above in mind, noting further that these unfolded in the last six months of an 18-year history of delays, it would be foolhardy to be surprised at this postponement. This is how Zuma has been gaming the law, presenting himself as a victim first of former president Thabo Mbeki’s political schemes and now of president Cyril Ramaphosa – all the while his case being kicked further down the road. 

To be clear, if Zuma is at all sick, he deserves to get the same best medical attention that other taxpayers are entitled to. His rights, especially to access health, must be upheld at all times. 

It is, for our country, more important that he is healthy and fit to account for all the criminal conduct relating to the arms deal he now faces but also those aired at the state capture commission later on. Eventually, his trial must get under way. We deserve answers as much as he deserves medical treatment. It’s not either or.