Zuma: Appearing in court in modern SA is much the same as it was during apartheid

In a conversation with his son Duduzane Zuma on Wednesday, the former president said he felt he was being handled much like he had been in apartheid South Africa.

He said: “I am no stranger to facing the law, but the difference is that when I faced the law in my young age as a freedom fighter, as a revolutionary and oppressed person in South Africa, I knew what I was doing was a justified cause and I was ready for anything.

“When we were arrested and tortured, we all knew you were paying the price for having taken the decision to fight to liberate the country. Even if I stayed in prison for a very long time, I never regretted that I became part of the struggle.

“The difference is that that was apartheid with its laws, unjust, and everybody knowing. The attitude of the judges was known then that if you appeared before the judge, they hated you because you were a terrorist.”

Zuma said the treatment he received now was “sad” because for someone who fought for freedom, justice in the current South Africa had become “problematic”.

He claimed there were some people in the judiciary who had pronounced that he would never win a case in their courts.

“It is very scary that today as I face justice, I have a feeling which I think is correct that there’s certain courts that when I appear or when my matter appears, the attitude is almost the same as what I went through during my days as a freedom fighter.

“Now as a free man, during the democratic time it is almost a given in the country that people will tell you that if you went to certain courts that Jacob Zuma cannot win a case.

“Some, unfortunately, have pronounced, some people in the judiciary, that Jacob Zuma will ‘never win in my court’. It’s a sad thing that in a free country that you fought for, you feel like you are in the same situation as you were,” he claimed.

The former president said it seemed nothing had changed for him because he used to be called names during apartheid, and it was still happening today.

“I have been called the most corrupt person but no one has ever come forward with evidence of that corruption,” he said.

The video was coincidentally released the day before Zuma was denied leave to appeal against a judgment that had found him guilty of defaming former minister Derek Hanekom.

Watch the full interview below:

Also read: Zuma’s appeal in Derek Hanekom defamation judgment dismissed