|
Mbeki Pleased with SCA Ruling |
| Publication |
Cape Argus |
| Date | 2009-01-13 |
| Reporter | Sapa |
|
Web Link |
Former president Thabo Mbeki said he was pleased with Monday's Supreme Court
of Appeal ruling that found no evidence of meddling by himself or the Cabinet in
the Jacob Zuma prosecution.
In a statement on Tuesday Mbeki said: "I welcome and accept the determinations
made by the SCA that Judge [Chris] Nicholson had no facts before him to suggest
that I and the Cabinet interfered with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA)
in its consideration of matters relating to Mr Jacob Zuma.
"I agree with the SCA where it says Judge Nicholson made 'gratuitous findings
against persons who were not called upon to defend themselves; (failed) to
distinguish between allegation, fact and suspicion; and (transgressed) the
proper boundaries between judicial, executive and legislative functions'."
"Accordingly, I also agree with the SCA where it says, 'Most of the allegations
(of political interference) were not only irrelevant but they were gratuitous
and based on suspicion and not on fact'."
He agreed there was no evidence to support a finding that suggested a strategy
involving former justice minister Penuell Maduna, himself and other Cabinet
members, as well as a causal connection between himself the Cabinet and former
NPA head Bulelani Ngcuka on the Zuma case.
"They were instead part of the judge's own conspiracy theory and not one
advanced by Mr Zuma," said the statement.
"Like the SCA, we had found the manner by which Judge Nicholson made negative
findings against the President and the Cabinet 'incomprehensible'."
Mbeki said he and the Cabinet had intervened in the NPA's appeal to the SCA
because they wanted to correct the "unfair and unwarranted inferences" made by
Nicholson against them.
"... And as the SCA said, we 'had ample reason to be upset by the reasons in the
judgment which cast aspersions on (us) without regard to (our) basic rights to
be treated fairly.' The SCA ruling has vindicated us."
He said the SCA had provided leadership on not damaging people's integrity
through untested allegations.
Mbeki said leaders and citizens should reflect on this practice to avoid the
"entrenchment of a culture which may eventually corrupt our society".
Mbeki was forced to resign in September 2008 after the Nicholson judgment in the
Pietermaritzburg High Court, which set aside the prosecution against Zuma.
It led the ruling ANC to say they no longer had faith in Mbeki.
The NPA considers Zuma a charged man after the Nicholson judgment was
overturned, while Zuma's legal team is considering its next move, which could
include an appeal to the Constitutional Court.
The actual comments on Mbeki, the Cabinet, Maduna
and Ngcuka, and inferences of political meddling were not struck out by the SCA,
as the judges believed it would be pointless to do so now, but the NPA's appeal
was upheld and the prosecution could continue *1.
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