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Zuma was sentenced to 15 months in July 2021 for defying a Constitutional Court order to appear at the Zondo Commission.
Former Chief Justice Raymond Zondo. Photo: Gallo Images/Veli Nhlapo
Former chief justice Raymond Zondo has questioned former president Jacob Zuma’s release from prison on medical parole after defying a Constitutional Court order in 2021.
Zondo delivered the keynote address on Tuesday, the second day of the 15th Commonwealth Regional Conference for heads of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Africa.
The four-day event is taking place in Cape Town.
Zuma, who was sentenced to 15 months in July 2021 for defying a Constitutional Court order to appear at the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into allegations of state capture, was released on medical parole in September 2021 by former correctional services commissioner Arthur Fraser.
The former president served just two months of the sentence.
Zondo chaired the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture from 2018 to 2022.
ALSO READ: WATCH: Zondo question Zuma’s release from prison on medical parole
During his address, Zondo commended the judiciary for initially imprisoning Zuma and handing down the Nkandla judgment.
“I’ve already mentioned the SIU (Special Investigating Unit), but I think I deserve to mention the Judiciary, because it is the Judiciary that issued the Nkandla judgment that, in the view of many, turned the tide,” Zondo said.
Zuma paid back R7.8 Million – a portion of the tax money spent on installing non-security features at his Nkandla homestead in rural KwaZulu-Natal – seven years after renovations first started.
The saga began with renovations estimated at R60 million at Nkandla. However, inflated pricing quickly ballooned this figure to R246 million, as later discovered by former public protector Thuli Madonsela.
ALSO READ: Court rules Zuma’s medical parole was unlawful, orders his return to prison
By the time the Nkandla renovations were completed, project costs had skyrocketed, and close to R100 million was spent on a chicken run, cattle kraal, Calvert, visitors’ centre, swimming pool and amphitheatre.
Zondo said even presidents are not spared from accountability.
“It is the judiciary that sent out a very good message that, whether you are president or a former president, if you have done wrong, we will send you to jail. It is the Judiciary that make sure that when some irregularities were done to release a former president from prison, which is the Judiciary which declared that that release was unlawful.
“But it was the executive which wanted us to believe that coincidentally, when he came back, there was this plan that certain prisoners should be released, and he just fitted into that plan. Some of us did not believe that,” Zondo said.
The matter Zondo referred to relates to the case in which the Constitutional Court dismissed the Correctional Services Department‘s appeal against the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) ruling that Zuma’s medical parole was unlawful in July 2023.
In November 2022, the SCA dismissed with costs Zuma’s appeal against the setting aside of his medical parole by the Pretoria High Court.
Zuma and the Department of Correctional Services had appealed the high court’s ruling in December 2021, which set aside Fraser’s decision to grant him medical parole.
The SCA basically ordered Zuma to go back to prison. The former president reported to the Estcourt Correctional Services facility in August 2023 following a decision on his incarceration.
ALSO READ: ‘Need for Zuma to make more submissions about prison sentence bizarre’ – Manyi
National Commissioner of Correctional Services Makgothi Samuel Thobakgale said Zuma was admitted into the facility and underwent processing.
However, Zuma was released two hours later after he became eligible for remission.
Thobakgale at the time said the process of remission was to avoid overcrowding of prisons and factored in the category of crimes committed and time already served in facilities.
The then Minister of Correctional Services, Ronald Lamola, said President Cyril Ramaphosa had remitted prisoners across the country and had not given Zuma special treatment.
“It is not a specific decision about former president Jacob Zuma, it is about all the offenders across the country. 9,488 inmates will be released into correctional supervision. Zuma will benefit from this.
“This ‘special remissions’ process was started the same day as the announcement of Zuma benefiting from it. He would also fall under the first ‘category’ of those released.”
Lamola said Ramaphosa was satisfied with the decision.
“The first issue the president is concerned about is respect for the rule of law. The president believes the rule of law has been served in this matter,” Lamola said.
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