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."
In an earlier opinion on the judgement,
these questions were asked. A political obituary without the name of the person
who died was read with the name Jacob Zuma before the coffin was opened to pay
last respects. Celebrations of the rule of law at 'play' were made, and one
narrative champagne bottles were popped open. South Africa went into an
intellectual comatose; the air of lethargy that took grip of thinkers was
blowing at tornado speeds.
In his characteristic style, Zuma remains
focused on the pieces he's moving, recalling those he's already moved and
contemplating his next moves. The constitutional court judge's cognitive
arrogance doesn't deter him; he focuses on his ultimate goal, delegitimising the litigation onslaught against him. The demonization of Zuma as a 'constitutional delinquent' by a hired army of reputation mercenaries disguised as analysts blinds an unsuspecting public and erodes the last line of our justice defence system, the Constitutional Court.
The saga began when the court granted
access for the contempt matter to be heard by it, despite it being a lower
court matter with no bearing on the constitutionality of its aspects. The behaviour of the Constitutional Court as an institution revealed cracks in the 'individual desires' of judges to 'settle' the Zuma scores at the expense of justice. Egos and emotions became transacting currencies that governed a
created reputation and legacy-breaking market, with Zuma's legacy as the prime
commodity on display.
The 1947 Commissions Act, in whose legal
sense the judges relied, is unambiguous on how issues of contempt of a
commission should be dealt with. A shared ignorance of Zuma as a human in the
human rights-based state created a case consideration behaviour at gross
variance with what was legally prescribed, to the extent that the judgement
clutched straws to find justification for doing what was, in essence,
irreconcilable with common law principles, and wrong.
To learn that the matter of Zondo's
recusal from presiding over Zuma was on record at a high court when the
Constitutional Court shenanigans and circus were pursued became a classical
case study of how a shared dislike for a person can be an opiate to a cognitive
elite. The person nodes in the institutional matrix that manufactured an
anti-Zuma 'factual matrix' to consolidate a thesis for contempt of a civil case
court matter to carry a sentence similar to criminal contempt cases are
interesting to observe.
In this festival of missteps by an
'arguably angry' and 'politically engaged' judiciary, the judiciary's
credibility as an institution of justice leadership is battered. The
consensuses that are crafted at dinner table engagements of the cognitive elite
of South Africa are manifest in the language and tone carrying the message of
the Zuma judgement. Like a school principal reading announcements at a morning
devotion assembly, Justice Sisi-Khampepe read more of a riot act than a
balanced judgment at that level of legal ideation.
As I asked in the first opinion, whose
political obituaries are written in this unfolding script? Has Zuma now moved
his pieces by filing for a review? Who is being put on notice? As a stick
fighter who knows how to fight with the shield as a permanent decoy whose blood
is on the floor?
Just thinking allowed.
🤷🏽♂️A ndzo ti vulavulela
🤷🏽♂️Be English nje
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