Court ruling on Zuma legal fees a victory for SA and DA

Today the people of South Africa have achieved a great victory in the battle for accountability. The North Gauteng High Court has ruled that the state will not fund Jacob Zuma’s legal fees, in his defence of his role in the corruption that has afflicted our country. And it has ordered Jacob Zuma to pay back the money already incurred by the state for his pending cases.

The Democratic Alliance has always maintained it was wrong of President Mbeki to decide that the public should pay for Zuma’s defence, and we argued that President Ramaphosa should have cancelled this illegal deal immediately. Sadly President Ramaphosa chose to help Jacob Zuma instead of standing up for accountability for corruption. We are thrilled that our court action has been successful. Of course, it should never have come down to a legal battle. Ramaphosa should have done the right thing and made Zuma pay for his own defence, without the people and the courts forcing him to do so.

The system of corruption where those who loot the state are then able to defend themselves using public money has been stopped today. This case sets an important precedent, and we will take this fight further to those people complicit in state capture.

The DA is committed to seeing justice done, and we will continue to fight for accountability at all levels of government. The people of South Africa can rely on us to fight in their corner.

Issued by Mmusi Maimane, Leader of the Democratic Alliance, 13 December 2018