The #FreeJacobZuma campaign welcomes that medical parole was granted to President Zuma and reiterates that his imprisonment was always politically motivated and illegal
6 September 2021
The #FreeJacobZuma campaign is grateful that President Jacob Zuma has been granted medical parole by the Department of Correctional Services. While our gratefulness is informed by our deep concern for President Zuma’s well being, we are certainly not impressed by the actions of the Constitutional Court (CC). We reiterate our unequivocal belief that the political imprisonment of President Zuma was right from the out start illegal, and that he should never have been imprisoned.
Let us spell out once again the background to the current situation: President Zuma’s legal rights were undermined by the Constitutional Court in as much as he was sentenced without a trial, through an angry, emotionally worded and vindictive judgement, which compromised President Zuma’s most basic human rights both in terms of our National Constitution, and the United Nations’ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
Right from the beginning when the vindictive CC judgement against President Zuma was announced by the then Acting Chief Justice, Sisi Kampepe, we argued that the highest court cannot sit as a court of first instance in what was not even a trial, but a legal procedure, because the convicted person does not have a right of review or appeal.
Inter alia, Article 14(5) of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states that every person convicted of an offense shall have a right to have his/her conviction and sentence reviewed by a higher court. Section 39 of our South African Constitution states that the Constitutional Court must take into account international law when interpreting the Bill of Rights.