Et tu Zuma?

The Constitutional Court today rejected Schabir Shaiks' leave to appeal his conviction and sentence on the charges of corruption and fraud on which he was convicted in the Durban High Court. In a decision significantly not signed by an individual judge but by "The Court", the Court argued that there was no prospect of a successful appeal on the ground that Mr. Shaik had not received a fair trial.

The defense had a high mountain to climb because it had not raised the constitutional issues in either the High Court or the Supreme Court of Appeal. In the Constitutional Court the most important argument raised by the defense was that Mr. Shaik had not received a fair trial because he was charged on his own and not together with Mr Jacob Zuma.

The Court reiterated that the right to a fair trial was a substantive right that went beyond the rights specifically enumerated in section 35(3) of the Constitution and in an implicit rebuke of the "Stalingrad" legal strategy employed by Mr. Jacob Zuma's lawyers stated that:

It is also clear that fairness is not a one-way street conferring an unlimited right on an accused to demand the most favourable possible treatment. A fair trial also requires: "fairness to the public as represented by the State. It has to instil confidence in the criminal justice system with the public, including those close to the accused, as well as those distressed by the audacity and horror of crime."

This seems to suggest that the Court will not easily entertain technical complaints masquerading as high constitutional principle and that the accused would have to show that he or she was really fundamentally prejudiced by the actions of the state before there would be any chance of declaring a trial unfair and unconstitutional.

In this case, Mr Shaik's lawyers had not shown that the applicant had suffered any prejudice. Mr. Zuma was asked to testify on behalf of the accused but he had declined (something I did not know before), but it cannot be said that this failure to testify had prejudiced the accused because it is impossible to predict what would have happened had the parties been charged together.

On a symbolic level this judgment reflects badly on Jacob Zuma (but his supporters seem immune to any moral opprobrium heaped on him) but I am not sure it is very significant from a legal perspective. It does not tell us anything about the legal issues most pertinent to the case and the court did not consider the non-constitutional arguments about the interpretation of the facts or the law.

The fact that the Court had decided not to allow one judge to sign his or her name to the judgment is very revealing though. This has only happened before in a hand full of highly charged political cases (including the floor crossing case and the Treatment Action Campaign case). It means the Court is acutely aware that the case would be scrutinised in the light of the succession race and the possibility of charges being laid against Mr. Jacob Zuma.

It reminds us of how poisonous the atmosphere has become in the run-up to the ANC December conference. Everyone is under suspicion, every judge a possible enemy. These are dark days for our democracy indeed.

Jacob Zuma's tax problem....

The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) yesterday ruled that the right to use loans interest-free is ‘gross income’ which ‘accrues’ to a taxpayer and that one must therefore pay tax on that benefit. This means, amongst other things, that people who receive bribes and then claim that those bribes were not bribes at all but merely interest free loans from friends, may have a tax evasion problem.

During the trial of Schabir Shaik much was made of the fact that the more than R1 million that Shaik gave to Zuma was a loan which Zuma was intending to pay back. But experts showed that if interest were to have been charged on these loans Zuma would have found it impossible to pay back the money. In any event the Court found that the "loan agreement" presented to it was fake and that the money was indeed given as a bribe.

If Zuma is charged again his legal team will have to think carefully about how they explain the fact that Zuma received this large amount of money from a convicted fraudster and why he has not paid any of it back - with or without interest accruing.

If they claim this was a loan to Zuma and they cannot show that the loan was serviced by the accused or that interest was being charged on the loan, they may convince a court that Mr. Zuma was not guilty of corruption, but they will then face a charge of tax evasion.

But if the money was not an interest bearing loan and it was not a non-interest bearing loan, it must have been a donation. Why would anyone donate more than one million Rand to a friend in a very influential position. Why would such a person accept such a donation? Surely it is difficult not to assume that the "donation" was given and the money taken because the arrangement was mutually beneficial to the two men.

Zuma for President?

My slightly tongue in cheek statement a few days ago that, given the behaviour of our Dear Leader lately, a Jacob Zuma Presidency is looking more and more attractive, elicited quite a lot of reaction. After all, Mr. Zuma does often ask for his machine gun and is also no stranger to the inside of our courts so he hardly seems like a suitable candidate for the top job.

The sad fact is that Jacob Zuma and Thabo Mbeki seem to represent the worst the ANC could offer in the line of leadership and also seem to bring out the worst in each other. We always blame President Mbeki for his paranoia and his tendency to spot enemies under every bush while warning us against the Dark Forces out to destroy the ANC, leader of the national democratic revolution.

But of course, although the President started this sad decent into the world of conspiracy theories and victimhood way back when he forced Mr Zuma to declare publicly that he had no ambition to become President, Mr. Zuma has neatly used this atmosphere of suspicion against the President to elicit sympathy from the masses of our people.

Now the two both fan the flames of conspiracy and victimhood in attempts to get the upper hand in the so called succession battle. In the process they are both hurting the ANC and, of course, the country.

In most other democracies Mr Zuma would have been politically dead long ago. Although he has not (yet) been convicted of any crime, his financial adviser Schabir Shaik, has been convicted of giving him a bribe. Yet he Mr Zuma never explained how this does not make him a crook himself. He used to say that he wished he could get the opportunity to tell his side of the story but when he was charged and given the opportunity to do just that, he and his lawyers used the vast resources provided by the state to do everything in their power to prevent him from having to provide his side of the story.

Although Mr. Zuma might never be convicted of a crime, he will remain deeply tainted. As a politician it is simply not good enough to say he has a right to use any means necessary to prevent the prosecution against him from taking place. Reasonable voters must all surely now ask what he has to hide and whether we really want to have a President who is unwilling to explain why he took more than R1 million from a convicted fraudster for whom he did several political favours.

That said, at least he is not Thabo Mbeki. He might have had sex without a condom and might have claimed that taking a shower helps to prevent HIV transmission but at least he has never doubted the link between HIV and AIDS and at least he has not endorsed a Health Minister who believes people must be given a choice between taking anti-retroviral drugs and garlic and beetroot.

So, I will not vote for the ANC while either Mbeki or Zuma leads the organisation, but if I had to choose between the two I am not as sure as I was a year ago that I would choose President Mbeki. Maybe Mr Zuma will listen to advice? Maybe he will admit mistakes and face up to them? Maybe he will show that he cares about the suffering of ordinary people. Maybe he would feel so embarrassed about taking a bribe that he will come down heavily against corruption in government.

Stranger things have happened in politics.

Maybe a Zuma Presidency wont be that bad...

Given the way the President has been behaving over the past few weeks I am seriously starting to wonder whether Jacob Zuma could be worse. At least we will have more fun with Mr. Zuma as President. Like this advert for the "Mshini Wam" ringtone. Not having dsiplayed much of a sense of humour since his elevation to the Presidency, adverts like this must drive President Mbeki nuts...

Zuma's double standard

Is it just me or has Mr. Jacob Zuma once again demonstrated spectacular double standards regarding the criminal justice system? In an interview with the SABC last week Zuma argued that criminals seem to have too many rights and that they should not be let out on bail as easily as they are.

But I always thought Mr. Zuma was of the firm belief that every person is “innocent until proven guilty? He has said so often enough.

But if one is innocent until proven guilty one should surely not be locked up until one is convicted of a crime – unless it is very clear that one poses a danger to society? And that is exactly what the rules on bail (properly interpreted) now provides for.

Why tighten up bail laws unless one is of the view that, yes, all people are innocent until proven guilty but some are more innocent than others.

The problem with this mantra, of course, is that unless one is called Jacob Zuma or is a politician with strong connections to an influential political party, one is never innocent until proven guilty.

Dina Rodriguez was never thought of by Mr. Zuma or anyone else as innocent until she was convicted. And let’s face it, I would be rather surprised to hear that Mr. Zuma has always been of the firm view that Wouter Basson was innocent and remains innocent because he was never convicted of a crime.

This is why I have such a bee in my bonnet about the way this principle – which is based on the notion that one must be presumed innocent by a court of law until the state has proven the case against one – is abused by politicians.

Mr. Zuma and others have been using this important legal principle to try and stop ordinary people from making value judgments about their character. In effect they claim that our standards for judging a politician must be lowered to such a degree that we can only criticize them in any way after they have been convicted of a crime.

But there is no legal reason why members of the public – as opposed to judges hearing a case – cannot make adverse assumptions about the character of, say, Mr. Zuma or Judge President John Hlophe or Robert McBride.

By indicating that bail conditions should be tightened for others who are also “innocent until proven guilty”, Mr. Zuma is really showing his hand. What he believes in (like most politicians caught with their hands in the till or their pants down – is that he is innocent even if proven guilty.

Criminals on the other hand – those who were charged correctly – must be locked up even before they are convicted.