Publication: Cape Argus Issued: Date: 2008-09-03 Reporter: Murray Williams

ANC Launches All-Out Battle to Keep its President Out Of Court

 

Publication 

Cape Argus
Date

2008-09-03
Reporter Murray Williams

Web Link

www.capeargus.co.za



The ANC has launched an intensive campaign to save Jacob Zuma from prosecution - admitting that it will use every weapon in its arsenal to have the charges against its president dropped.

Yesterday, just a week before KwaZulu-Natal Judge Chris Nicholson rules on whether the Scorpions' case against Zuma should proceed, the ANC's highest decision-making body, its national working committee, announced an all-encompassing strategy to ensure that Zuma stays out of court, regardless of the ruling.

Party secretary-general Gwede Mantashe told the Cape Argus this morning that this would involve mobilising support across the country - not just from ANC supporters, but using the media to try to generate overwhelming public support for the charges to be dropped.

The NWC's formal statement reads: "(The Zuma matter) has become deeply politicised, with South Africans being asked to take sides. It is (our) view that it is time to address these divisions and work towards a national consensus."

Mantashe explained that the party viewed the pending charges against Zuma in a similar light to the fight against apartheid *1.

He said apartheid had been resolved through dialogue and the ANC wanted the charges against Zuma to be similarly resolved.

He did not say how any such support would translate into the charges being dropped, saying only: "Through public dialogue and debates by civil society this matter can be settled amicably.

"This initiative will have to be driven by the public, with the ANC being participants."

Critics accuse the ANC of subverting fundamental bastions of democracy, such as the judiciary and the principle of the rule of law. But Mantashe said: "We are of the view that, through dialogue, we will arrive at a solution that will not be seen to be undermining state institutions.

"We have done it before: when we were negotiating a democratic government, in 1990, we arrived at a sufficient consensus that enabled us to have democracy."

Presenting a case for the disbandment of the beleaguered crime-fighting team, the Directorate of Special Operations (the Scorpions) yesterday, the Kwa-Zulu-Natal SACP - also vocal in its support for Zuma - told MPs that the DSO was conducting a "double investigation" against the ANC leader by pursuing both the "political and criminal" angles in the case.

The SACP claimed that the "rot has gone so deep" in the DSO "that no amount of administrative or procedural tinkering" could change anything.

But DA Mpumalanga youth leader Stanley Zondi told MPs that "you do not solve the problem of a flat tyre by deflating all the other tyres". - Additional reporting by Political Bureau

With acknowledgements to Murray Williams and Cape Argus.


*1       This, indeed the entire content of the article (not the article itself), is one of the biggest loads of horse manure that I have ever read in my 50 years upon this fair planet.

The only way to have the charges against Zuma and his two co-accused dismissed is for them to defend the charges in court so persuasively that the judge dismisses the charges by means of not guilty finding.

But with the evidence having been comprehensively tested in both the High Court and Supreme Court of Appeal and this evidence stemming from entirely relevant and identical circumstances, a snowball in hades in summer would be a very happy chappy by comparison.

But if Accused 1 is not guilty as he and his supporters say, then he has nothing to fear from Judge Nicholson and his two assessors.

Judge Nicholson is a very competent and experienced lawyer and judge with a leaning towards human rights.

He is simply not going to find someone guilty when they are indeed not guilty.

If Judge Nicholson finds Accused 1 not guilty *2 then Not Guilty 1 will have all of his legal expenses paid by the taxpayer and he can sue all his persecutors for their persecution of him. He could easily be awarded R50 million in damages *3.


*2      And The State on behalf of The People do not take the judgment on appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal.


*3      About equivalent to the total amount of his legal expenses currently being paid by the taxpayer.


And, if The State abandons its case against Accused 1 or Accused 2 or Accused 3 then it will have to issue a nulle prosequi certificate thereby opening the way for as private prosecution.

The State will end up paying for the private prosecution as well as have to furnish all of its 163 000 pages of documentary evidence private prosecutor.

Now that will indeed be interesting.