Jacob Zuma's legal counsel has failed to impress
a bench of Constitutional Court judges, with one judge saying that the type of
"creative conspiracy" he was allegedly involved in
justified broad investigation.
Yesterday, Judge Zac Yacoob said he had "no difficulty"
with the information the State had provided to justify the search and seizure
operations it conducted on Zuma's and his attorneys' homes and offices.
Judge Yacoob was responding to arguments made by lawyers for Zuma and French
arms company Thint, who claim that warrants used to raid their homes and offices
should be declared invalid because they were "vague" and "overbroad".
The August 2005 raids conducted on Zuma and his attorneys with the warrants
netted 93 000 documents, later used by the State to conduct a massive forensic
audit into Zuma's financial affairs.
It was this audit that formed the basis of the indictment served on Zuma by the
State in December last year.
Judge Yacoob appeared unimpressed by arguments
advanced by Zuma's counsel, Kemp J Kemp, and Thint advocate Peter Hodes that the
warrants should have been far more specific about what they sought.
"It is a broad conspiracy *1, if it is one, that
has used national and international methods *2,"
Judge Yacoob said, adding this was why the State needed to
ensure it had a "catch-all phrase" in the warrants that would allow it to
seize whatever material it thought to be relevant.
"It is understandable in the safe-guarding of the public
interest," he said, responding to Hodes's contention that such a phrase
was "a licence for a general ransacking".
Judge Yacoob was seemingly backed up by fellow Judge Kate O'Regan, who later
suggested that the legislation used to obtain the disputed search warrants was
necessary so that the police could investigate more than "just the tip of the
iceberg" in corruption and fraud cases.
Judge O'Regan suggested that, when dealing with so-called white collar crime, it
was often difficult to put exact details in the search warrants.
She said that if warrants were too precise, the ability of the police to
investigate white collar crime would be undermined.
She was also unimpressed by Kemp's suggestion that
the huge number of documents seized in the raids effectively proved that the
warrants were too vague.
She said international experience had shown that corruption investigations
generated large numbers of documents, a statement Judge Yacoob supported.
With acknowledgement to Tania Broughton, Karyn Maughan and Cape
Argus.
*1*2Of the Shaik/Zuma/Thomson-CSF used
international bases for their conspiracy to commit corruption, bribery and money
laundering.
There are definitely the RSA plus France, Mauritius, United Kingdom and Turkey.
There are the possibilities of, inter alia, Mozambique, Lebanon, Algeria,
Lichtenstein and Taiwan.