The
sentencing of Jacob Zuma, a significant figure in South African politics, has
far-reaching implications. As he faces a 15-month jail term and becomes a
subject of planning at correctional services, the focus shifts to the impact of
this sentence on our fragile democracy and the functioning of our legal system.
The transition to democracy in South
Africa, orchestrated by the Nelson Mandela leadership cohort, was a
Monumental decision. It was not just a shift in political power but a
transformation that was deeply rooted in the rule of law. This decision bridges the normative statehood established under apartheid and the
envisioned pathfinder legacies of transitioning to the current rule of
law.
The South African legal system, inherited
from the apartheid era, faced challenges. Arbitrary judgments and
chauvinisms, such as racial biases, were prevalent. Overcoming these challenges
and building trust in the normative aspects of law, free from historical
prejudices, is crucial. The institutions dispense normative
decisions, acts, and judgments that need to be trusted more than the
individuals within them.
In his arguments for not honouring the
Constitutional Court order to appear before the Zondo Commission, President
Zuma problematised the persons in the judiciary and not necessarily the
judiciary as an institution. The political cadence that instructed the
substratum of his logic angled individual judges as persons not to be trusted,
notwithstanding their being organs of institutions, he might have confidence in
their functioning. This logic, a somewhat 'could-have-been-argued' submission
to the courts, will go into history as the crux of his error of judgment in
deciding not to go and argue his case.
By creating an adversary out of the
individuals in the system, Jacob Zuma might have lost an opportunity to
interrogate the system that leads individuals based on established normative
legacies instructive to the country's jurisprudence. In designing arrangements to
govern each other, the post-apartheid elite sought to create a system whose
judicial cadence would facilitate normative government as an anathema to
arbitrary government often experienced in democracies in transition. Zuma
became thus a defendant in a system whose strategy was etched on making
functionaries of the system his adversaries, as he sought 'justice'.
The normative legal origins of our
democratic state, despite being in a constitutional democracy, are etched in
texts, precedence, analogues and practices from an era that established them to
enforce a rule-by-law-based system. Whilst the rule of law provides a virtuous
context for 'members of the judiciary' to exercise fairness, it does not
exclude them from the vices of the very rule of law if the dominant cognitive
elite is in a transition of constructing a common law-reliant jurisprudence.
The impact of the Jacob Zuma judgement is
that 'whilst the courts were the only zones within which the injustice of
apartheid could be challenged, they have now become a zone within which
interests as currency of politics could be adjudicated. The contempt of court
by Zuma was a political act that attracted a committal devoid of the civil
nature of the act.
As the judgement analysis ensues, the
question is, 'Is it a checkmate on Zuma's chess board? Are there still pieces that
Zuma needs to move? Are there new platforms that may be used to appeal the
judgement in a court of public opinion? A not-like-Sisi-Khampepe jury is out.
All said and done, correctional services await
the former President. South Africa is a different tomorrow.
🤷🏽♂️Ndzo ti vulavulela!
🤷🏽♂️Be ngisho nje!
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