Spy Tapes: Zuma’s affidavit is totally irrational
16 April 2015
President Jacob Zuma and Mr Michael Hulley - his legal counsel, as the Third Respondent, have filed their opposing affidavit in the review application into the dropping of the 783 counts of corruption, fraud and racketeering levelled against President Zuma. The DA’s preliminary reading of the President’s affidavit shows that this decision is based on nothing more than conjecture and hearsay and confidential representations Mr Zuma made in 2009 (see report).
The affidavit argues that the prosecution was discontinued because Mr Zuma made confidential representations in 2009 that spoke to the heart of the case against him and warranted the subsequent dropping of the charges.
Whatever these representations may contain is irrelevant because for six years the NPA and Mr Zuma himself clung to the argument that the prosecution against him was a conspiracy. Now their entire affidavit is hung on these supposed confidential representations made back in 2009.
This is completely misleading given that Mr Mpshe, on 6 April 2009, announced that he was to decide on the case based on allegations of a conspiracy to unfairly prosecute Mr Zuma and would make a determination on that basis. To suggest that this decision was based on other reasons ex post facto is manifestly irrational.
President Zuma, no doubt on the advice of Mr Hulley, is trying to run two defences for the price of one.
In addition to the affidavit being poorly written and riddled with errors in law, it also tries to persist in the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) narrative that the prosecution against Mr Zuma was a political conspiracy ahead of the ANC’s elective conference in Polokwane, yet fails to provide an iota of concrete factual evidence to support this claim.
This is to say that the affidavit fails to answer the central question which is: if there was a conspiracy, why could a competent judge not determine that this justified an acquittal? This would surely have been the correct approach rather than the then National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP), Mokotedi Mpshe, taking the decision to discontinue on the basis that Mr Zuma was being maliciously prosecuted.
Mr Zuma’s legal counsel now tries to cloak the dropping of these charges in spurious reasoning and supposed representations that have never been made public.
It has become increasingly clear that President Zuma is trying to have his bread buttered on both sides.
In the absence of any legitimate factual or legal reasons, the DA is led to believe that these charges were dropped to serve a political agenda.
The DA has long held, as outlined in my supplementary affidavit, the President may indeed not be guilty of corruption but must, like any other citizen, have his day in court.
Therefore the DA will proceed with its court action to declare the decision to drop the charges against President Zuma be set aside on account that the decision itself was irrational and therefore unlawful.
Statement issued by James Selfe MP, Chairperson of the DA’s Federal Executive, April 16 2015
