Sakeliga starts process to have Dlamini-Zuma found guilty of contempt of court

9 January 2023

Dr Nkosazana-Dlamini Zuma, Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, remains in contempt of a court order instructing her to submit to Sakeliga several records concerning her 2020 state of disaster decisions. As a result, Sakeliga has now started a process to have the minister declared guilty of contempt of court.

In terms of an order obtained by Sakeliga on 9 November 2022, Dlamini-Zuma should have submitted to Sakeliga by 22 December 2022 a variety of records she had relied on when declaring the national state of disaster in March 2020 and subsequently extending it several times. This she has not done. Instead of doing so, the State Attorney – on Dlamini-Zuma’s instruction – submitted records concerning isolated decisions that are already available in the public domain. Sakeliga then put an extended due date of 6 January 2023 to the Minister.

Reacting to the extended due date, the State Attorney delivered to the offices of our attorneys boxes of files – approximately 3 800 pages – consisting exclusively of documents for public participation and research documents relating to the April 2020 ban on the sale and distribution of tobacco. The 3 800 pages have been directly copied from court files from an action at the time concerning the ban on tobacco, in which the Minister was a respondent.

No minutes of meetings, interdepartmental correspondence and draft regulations have been submitted.

Sakeliga now has requested the state attorney to produce, by 11 January, a satisfactory explanation of Dlamini-Zuma’s failure to submit the records. This step forms part of a thorough process that has to be followed to get a person declared guilty of contempt of court.  The next step is likely to be a court application. While it is already clear that Dlamini-Zuma is attempting to thwart Sakeliga and the court, it is a procedural requirement that her contempt should be proven in a further court application. In this way the Minister can be compelled either to disclose the records or to face imprisonment.

Sakeliga remains committed to reining in the power of public servants. While Dlamini-Zuma took her decisions largely or completely with the support of President Cyril Ramaphosa and while it was mostly Ramaphosa who did the late-night announcements, Dlamini-Zuma is the focus of this application because she as Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs was legally responsible for the decisions. She therefore is the designated destination for a request for information and a subsequent court order. The information granted to Sakeliga by the court will shed light on the decisions made by Dlamini-Zuma and a government that for more than two years caused enormous damage through unprecedented arbitrary dictates and restrictions.  

Sakeliga wishes to express the hope that the court order we have already obtained and any resultant contempt applications will allow members of the public to hold the state accountable for harmful decisions of the past and to fend off similar decisions in the future.

Issued by Piet le Roux, CEO, Sakeliga, 9 January 2023