Editorial
Johannesburg - One of the saddest indictments of our country this week has been the crying wolf about the dangers of jailing Jacob Zuma, after the Gauteng High Court ruled that he had been improperly released on medical parole earlier this year.
There was never any doubt in law that former Correctional Services Commissioner Arthur Fraser had wholly overstepped his authority when he ordered Zuma’s release, but this week when Judge Keoagile Matojane unequivocally explained why our perennially constitutional delinquent former president should go back to his cell, there was the usual cacophony of doomsayers.
Just as predictably his legal team announced their intention to appeal. This one will be fascinating: after thumbing his nose at the most senior judge in the country and being jailed by the Constitutional Court because of it, his lawyers will ultimately be asking it to rule on this week’s judgment.
We dare not become fixated by this particular legal issue – which Zuma brought about all by himself – when there is a far more serious case waiting in the wings in 2022; his corruption trial which he has done everything to delay or derail for almost 20 years.
Zuma’s immediate future will involve jail. It’s high time South Africa got used to that. Any attempt to sidestep this is especially pandering to the traitors who tried to burn down the country in July, not just cowardly; it is criminal.
Zuma must get his day in court on the charges he has tried to evade. But before then he must pay the price for his unprecedented defiance of a judicial commission of inquiry – and our apex court.
And while that is under way, the ring leaders of the July insurrection must be put in the dock. Anything less is anarchy.
It’s time to uphold the Rule of Law.