Concourt dismisses Zuma’s bid to appeal Judge Maya’s decision

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The constitutional court has rejected former president Jacob Zuma’s application for leave to appeal the decision by then appellate court president Mandisa Maya in May to reconsider that court’s decision to deny him leave to appeal in his failed bid to challenge the standing of state prosecutor Billy Downer.

The apex court said it would not be in the interests of justice to entertain the application as Zuma could yet bring before it an application for leave to appeal Pietermaritzburg high court judge Piet Koen’s dismissal of the special plea he entered regarding Downer last year.

Zuma argued that the veteran prosecutor had turned the arms deal fraud and corruption case against him into a personal crusade and forsaken the requisite impartiality to bring the matter to trial. It was widely seen as another flawed stab at a stay of prosecution, which the former president was denied by the supreme court of appeal (SCA) in 2019. 

Koen dismissed the plea in October and in February also turned down Zuma’s application for leave to appeal the ruling. Zuma then turned to the SCA — which denied him leave to appeal — and subsequently invoked section 17(2)(f) of the Superior Courts Act to ask that Maya reconsider her court’s decision 

Maya dismissed his approach, prompting him to ask the apex court for leave to appeal her decision. But the court noted that there now remained another avenue of approach for Zuma that would also lead to Braamfontein, on the same subject.

“For purposes of this application, the court has assumed, without so deciding, that a decision of the [former] president to dismiss section 17(2)(f) application is in principle appealable and that the process engages its jurisdiction,” it said.

“The court has nevertheless concluded that it would not be in the interests of justice to grant leave to appeal the [former] president’s dismissal of the applicant’s section 17(2)(f) application, having regard to the fact that the applicant would be entitled to seek leave from this court to appeal the high court’s judgment to this court.”

Zuma’s eponymous foundation on Thursday tweeted a doctored version of the decision, with the words “without so deciding” deleted.

Though his bid to appeal Maya’s decision failed, it has still helped to force a further delay in his corruption trial.

Koen has set 17 October as a return date to allow the constitutional court time to settle the matter, with 7 November as a prospective trial date.

The judge was reluctant to allow the trial to stall but said that he was allowed no discretion by the Superior Courts Act, which Zuma’s counsel invoked to argue that in terms of section 18 a decision that is subject to appeal, or an application for leave to appeal, is suspended barring exceptional circumstances. 

The state maintains that Zuma’s complaint against Downer is a spurious chapter in a long history of “Stalingrad” tactics, forcing delays in the case where he faces 12 counts of fraud, two of corruption and one each of racketeering and money-laundering.

The charges stem from alleged bribes Zuma received from French arms manufacturer Thales, through his former financial adviser Schabir Shaik.