Have you ever picked up that dreaded card in the Monopoly board game that tells the player to head straight to jail, not to pass go and do not collect your R200 for the next turn round the board?
Seems the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria played that card this morning when it found that the former national commissioner of correctional services Arthur Fraser’s decision to allow former president Jacob Zuma to leave prison on medical parole was unlawful. The court further ordered that Zuma and Fraser should pay the costs of the medical parole challenge and that Zuma should return to prison.
Of course, Zuma will surely try to pull another rabbit out of the hate rather than to go back to jail to complete his 15-month contempt of court sentence for failing to appear before the State Capture Commission.
News24 legal writer, Karyn Maughan writes the ruling makes specific mention of the requirements that must be met for a prisoner to be granted medical parole and makes it clear that the medical parole advisory board must play a key decision in such a decision.
The medical parole board advised against granting Zuma bail back in September before Fraser decided otherwise.
“The Commissioner does not have the power to override the Board when it refuses medical parole, the court has found. That being said, this ruling will have huge political implications – and comes months after Zuma’s imprisonment was followed by violence, looting and hundreds of deaths,” says Maughan.
But there will always be those that support Zuma and won’t take kindly to the news.
Zuma ally and Radical Economic Transformation (RET) proponent Nkosentsha Shezi made a vow to protect the former president.
Carl Niehaus, one of Zuma’s most vocal supporters and a former ANC spokesperson, came out in defiance of the announcement claiming the order to return to jail “should be rejected”.
With the latest development in the Zuma saga underway the country will hope that tensions aren’t heightened and the forces that pushed the nation to a failed coup and led to mass looting and rioting in July don’t try to seize on another opportunistic moment.
Social media has been quick to react to the news, poking fun and making a mockery of the former president, who recently released a new tell-all book.
However you view the former head of state, friend or foe, maligned or deserves what he’s getting, victim or hero – this surely won’t be the last twist in the Zuma saga.
Here’s a roundup of interesting opinions, analyses, and editorials:
- Why is Ramaphosa not filling vacancies on the Con Court? – Daily Maverick
- How SA’s petrol price is set and why fuel should be deregulated – Sunday Times Daily (Subscribe to read)
- ROB ROSE: Behind Saica’s comedy of errors – Financial Mail (Subscribe to read)
- UK lifts its Omicron travel ban on South Africa and 10 other southern African nations – Daily Maverick
- Melanie Verwoerd | Protests against Shell an apartheid of a special kind?! A cheap shot, Mantashe! – News24 (Subscribe to read)
- THULI MADONSELA: Grasping the De Klerk moment – Financial Mail (Subscribe to read)
- CAIPHUS KGOSANA | Santa, please read this. It has gift ideas for our politicians – Sunday Times Daily (Subscribe to read)
Feature image: GCIS
