Publish date | 11 July 2019 |
Issue Number | 4738 |
Diary | Legalbrief Today |
When former President Jacob Zuma appears before the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, he may not want to answer the questions put to him, but he clearly wants to attack the reason he’s being asked them in the first place. The question,’ says journalist and analyst Karyn Maughan – in an opinion piece on the Financial Mail site – ‘is simply this: what will it do then?’ Maughan notes that Zuma – who has been asked to ‘give his side’ of the story on allegations that he and his administration were ‘captured’ by private interests – can choose to answer the questions put to him, or openly defy a process he clearly regards as illegitimate. ‘It is almost certain that he will do the latter,’ she says.
* Zuma has not been prepared to answer the questions he may face. After the inquiry declined to provide the former President with those questions, his lawyers have distanced themselves from any involvement in preparation processes for his evidence. The FM says it has established that the inquiry has since repeatedly tried to hand over documents it regards as relevant to Zuma’s testimony to his attorney Daniel Mantsha, without success. ‘That means that when Zuma gets into the witness box, he will be one of the few inquiry witnesses to do so without any real consultation with evidence leaders – and, he may argue, no ability to independently recollect and testify about events that took place years ago.’
* The inquiry has not subpoenaed Zuma but has instead ‘invited’ him to appear before it. It has also told his lawyers that this invitation is not being extended under any of the inquiry’s rules, but is rather an opportunity for Zuma to address the claims made against him. Zuma, however, maintains that none of that testimony actually implicates him, effectively suggesting that there really is no need for him to respond.
Maughan says it is thus clear that Zuma wants ‘a chance to vent’ about the inquiry itself. Mantsha previously told the commission that Zuma ‘relishes the moment when he will publicly, in appropriate, impartial, credible and truly independent forums, expose what lies behind the abuse of legal and judicial processes’ that he claims has defined the inquiry’s conduct towards him. Says Maughan: ‘Zuma has not identified what this ‘‘independent’’ forum will be, but he may well choose to use his opportunity to voice, again, why he does not believe that ‘‘state capture’’ exists and perhaps explain who he believes is using the term as a ‘‘political weapon’’ against himself and others implicated in it.’