Publication: Saturday Star Issued: Date: 2006-02-11 Reporter: Jeremy Gordin Reporter: Kashiefa Ajam

Row Brews over Zuma Trial Judge

 

Publication 

Saturday Star

Date

2006-02-11

Reporter

 Jeremy Gordin
Kashiefa Ajam

Web Link

www.thestar.co.za

 

There were roars of disappointment and outrage from many of Jacob Zuma's supporters yesterday after it was announced that the Judge President of the Transvaal, Bernard Ngoepe, had chosen himself to preside at the former deputy president's rape trial on Monday.

None of the Zuma legal team - Kemp J Kemp, SC; Jerome Brauns, SC; Tandanani Mbongwa and attorney Michael Hulley - would comment on the appointment of the judge president to the trial. Nor would they say anything about whether Monday's proceedings might start with an application for the judge president's recusal.

But a prominent legal source, known to Saturday Star, said that it had to be "obvious to anyone with the slightest knowledge of the law" that an application for the recusal of Judge Ngoepe from the trial "was on the cards" *1 and would doubtless be discussed in the preparation of Zuma's defence.

In August last year, Judge Ngoepe issued the search warrants used by the Scorpions to raid the offices of Zuma's Johannesburg attorney Juleka Mohamed, Hulley's offices in Durban, and the Pretoria offices of French arms dealer Thint and the home of its chief executive Pierre Moynot.

Thint has been charged with Zuma on two counts of corruption. The trial on this matter has been set down for July 31 in the Durban High Court (but it is understood that it may be held in Pietermaritzburg).

In November, Mohamed brought a successful application in the Johannesburg High Court - though the Scorpions have appealed the finding - to have all documents and computer discs seized by the Scorpions returned to her.

Both Hulley and Thint have since brought similar applications before the high courts in Durban and Pretoria. Thint argues that Judge Ngoepe could not have been presented full and proper evidence by the Scorpions: if he had, he would never have allowed the search warrants.

"In layman's terms," said the legal source, "in issuing the search warrants, the Judge President clearly made a prima facie decision - that is, he made a decision without hearing from the 'other' side, a decision based on only one side of the argument - that there was some merit in the Scorpion argument that there was reason to believe that Zuma is guilty of corruption. It was on this basis that he allowed the warrants.

"If there is unhappiness on a client's part about the presiding judge, whoever he may be, and this unhappiness is reasonably based," said the legal source, "it stands to reason that the client is going to consider applying for that judge's recusal. It's not rocket science *1."

Zuma is scheduled to take the dock at 10am in court 4e of the Johannesburg High Court on Monday to answer the charge that he raped a "family friend", a woman in her early thirties, at his Forestown, Johannesburg, home in the first week of November. He is out on R20 000 bail.

Johannesburg's Director of Public Prosecutions Charin de Beer will prosecute the case and is expected to call a total of 23 witnesses to testify about the allegations.

lThe Department of Justice has announced that all roads surrounding the Johannesburg High Court will be cordoned off on Monday as a result of the rape trial.

All roads leading to Von Wielligh Street will be closed. They include Pritchard; Von Brandis; Kruis; Market; President and Jeppe streets.

Motorists are advised to find alternate routes between 6am and 4pm.

With acknowledgements to Jeremy Gordin, Kashiefa Ajam and Saturday Star.


*1  A tactic with potentially a substantial downside if the application its refused.

*2  The law is not science and seldom does it involve the dynamics of a rocket, except for the speed at which costs are accumulated.