Representations to prosecuting authorities from any accused needed to be
carefully controlled to ensure justice.
Law experts yesterday said that those who believed that a case against them had
no merit could use a representation to try to avoid prosecution. But it should
never create a “parallel process”.
Professor Karthy Govender, professor of constitutional law at the University of
KwaZulu-Natal, said such a process would slow down the system.
“There may be some information that people place before the NPA that may be very
relevant to the decision process. But you have to be careful about this
process,” said Govender.
In the Zuma case, Govender said the NPA had to determine whether there was a
case to answer and whether it was reasonably likely to succeed in court.
“ The NPA has got to exercise its discretion. The more information you have the
more likely it is to make a better decision. We must assume that the NPA is not
going to be influenced by political considerations,” he said.
Criminal lawyer Herbert Raubenheimer said any accused person could make a
representation if they felt that the case did not warrant a prosecution.
“Let’s say you are accused of murder but you’ve got a watertight alibi, namely
that you were overseas at that time... your legal representative could approach
the NPA and state that it’s impossible for his client to have committed the
murder,” said Raubenheimer.
He could not comment on the Zuma case, he said, because his legal team were
“keeping their cards too close to the chest”.