ANC president Jacob Zuma denies that he has been abusing the legal process to stall his trial, claiming instead that the prosecution was using this argument as a ploy to grab headlines and to discredit him in the run-up to the elections.

Hitting back at accusations regarding Zuma's latest bid for leave to appeal against a judgment ahead of his fraud and corruption trial in August, his attorney, Michael Hulley, said in papers before the Constitutional Court last week that it was "simply untrue that the proposed appeal will delay the criminal trial".

Zuma has applied to the Constitutional Court for leave to appeal the January 12 judgment of the Supreme Court of Appeal, which found that Section 179 of the constitution did not oblige the State to accept representations before a decision was made to prosecute.

That ruling overturned the earlier ruling of Judge Chris Nicholson, which had gone in Zuma's favour, and reinstated the corruption charges that have been hounding Zuma on and off for years.

In its opposition to Zuma's application, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said the Constitutional Court should not even entertain Zuma's application, which was unlikely to be successful and bound to achieve only further delays in his prosecution.

In his reply, Hulley slammed the NPA's contention that Zuma's prosecution "has already been delayed by nearly four years because of misguided interlocutory litigation". He said this accusation held no objective merit and was repeated because the prosecution was "well aware that it is exactly this type of accusation which grabs the headlines".

Hulley says the media saw as an indictment of Zuma the pronouncements that he had delayed matters by bringing various court challenges related to his prosecution and had been reporting them as such.

"The respondent is also, no doubt, well aware that it is exactly this type of accusation which grabs the headlines and is used by a vociferous and large part of the media to discredit Mr Zuma and the ANC with special vigour in the run-up to the April 2009 elections."

Hulley said it was important to set the record straight, in case the court considered this aspect to be a negative factor in determining compliance with the "interests of justice" requirement, and in the process construed Zuma's lack of response to the accusation of delay and obstructiveness as acceptance of this view.

While the dispute about which delays should be laid at the door of the State would form part of the permanent stay application, it was essential to clear up the "delaying tactics" allegations so that the court did not hold them against Zuma and ruled that it would not be in the interest of justice to allow the appeal.

Hulley listed the history of the stop-start process that characterised Zuma's prosecution, and included details of correspondence dating from 2002, to indicate that Zuma had offered to co-operate with the investigation against him and had welcomed throughout an opportunity to clear his name in court *1.

NPA spokesman Tlali Tlali yesterday said that the parties, having filed papers, were now waiting for further directives from the Chief Justice.

"[He] welcomed throughout [the seven year period] an opportunity to clear his name in court."