'Vague submissions'

BLOEMFONTEIN: Jacob Zuma may have entered the Supreme Court of Appeal with a spring in his step yesterday, but he left it legally bruised and no longer certain of stalling the state's relentless digging into his financial affairs.

Three of the Bloemfontein court's senior judges led the charge against Zuma's counsel Kemp J Kemp, SC, slamming him for "vague submissions" they said had no basis in law.

Although it was the State that was appealing against an order that their raids on Zuma and his attorney Michael Hulley were conducted with unlawful warrants, it was Kemp who ended up facing a marathon grilling from the judges.

Under their almost unceasing questioning, an apparently flustered Kemp submitted that people being searched by the authorities must understand the search warrants used against them so that they could "physically resist" if their rights were being violated.

Apparently disturbed by the wild arm movements Kemp made as he said the words "physically resist", Judge Robert Nugent paused before commenting: "I don't understand that proposition."

Later the judge said: "The warrants should be sufficiently clear to be able to be challenged in court not in a fisticuff."

Judges Nugent, Ian Farlam and Tom Cloete appeared unimpressed with Kemp's suggestions that the State might have taken privileged documents when it raided Hulley's offices - potentially resulting in any future case against Zuma being rendered a mistrial.

Pointing out that Hulley was an experienced criminal attorney, the judges questioned his claims - made to the Durban High Court - that he had not known he could refuse to hand the documents over because they might be privileged.

"I must say that I find that incredible," Judge Farlam said.

However, he added that it was to Hulley's credit that he did not claim privilege when he was not sure exactly what documents were contained in the two boxes seized from his office.

The State claims the disputed documents were simply Zuma's financial records which were once kept by his former financial adviser and now convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik.

Zuma's legal team has made much of the State's failure - in the light of the claims of privilege - to seal the documents and lodge them with a court's registrar.

The judges took issue with the fact that no-one from Zuma's legal team had asked for copies of the disputed documents so they could ascertain which, if any, were in fact privileged.

Closing up the State's argument late yesterday, Wim Trengove, SC, dismissed the entire debate over the validity of the warrants as being academic.

This was because, despite Zuma and his legal team's claims that the warrants used to search them were "fatally flawed", they had never said they had not understood their terms. They had also never contended that any of the thousands of documents seized fell outside the terms of the warrants and, further, they still did not claim any of the documents were actually privileged.

The State wants the court to declare the warrants lawful, enabling it to use the documents to prepare for a possible prosecution of Zuma and French arms company Thint.

A decision by the Appeal Court on this issue is effectively what is standing between the State's final decision whether or not to recharge the ANC deputy president.

Should the State fail in its appeal, it has asked the court to consider granting an order "preserving" the documents until their admissibility can be argued at a possible future trial.

After Judge Farlam reserved judgment on the hearing late yesterday afternoon, a tired but smiling Zuma made a quick exit from the court to the sounds of a small, yet vocal crowd of supporters gathered outside.

Zuma had earlier made a jubilant entrance in court one, raising his hands and acknowledging the supporters in the public gallery.

Today, the court will hear an appeal by Thint against a Pretoria High Court ruling that the raids on its premises were lawful.

With acknowledgements to Karyn Maughan, Tania Broughton and Cape Times