President Cyril Ramaphosa has been requested by his predecessor former President Jacob Zuma to look into the fitness to hold office of National Director of Public Prosecutions Advocate Shamila Batohi. Picture : Phando Jikelo/African News Agency(ANA)
FORMER president Jacob Zuma wants National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) Advocate Shamila Batohi’s fitness to hold office to be assessed after questioning the independence of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
Zuma, through his lawyers, has written to his successor President Cyril Ramaphosa requesting the incumbent to establish an inquiry looking into the fitness to hold office of both Batohi and Deputy National Director of Public Prosecutions Rodney de Kock.
Zuma’s letter stems from his legal action against state prosecutor Advocate Billy Downer, whom he has accused of leaking confidential medical information to journalists.
In the letter addressed to Ramaphosa, Zuma did not hold back in his criticism of the NPA and its handling of his matter with Downer.
Laying into the NPA, Zuma said that after he had laid charges against Downer on 21 October, 2021 the prosecuting authority had gone out of its way to support a criminal suspect in Downer.
He said that the National Prosecuting Authority had ostensibly, with the authorisation of the NDPP, issued a media statement and conducted radio and television interviews castigating Zuma for exercising his rights to lay criminal charges against Downer.
Zuma also accused the NPA and Batohi of vouching for Downer’s innocence and integrity even before the police investigation could begin.
“To add insult to injury, once Advocate Downer was indicted, the NPA and or the NDPP took an obviously irrational, illegal and biased decision to provide him with legal support at state expense in respect of both the legal proceedings to review prosecution as well as the separate criminal proceedings.
“Advocate Downer SC is in fact being legally represented by counsel who are directly implicated in his alleged crimes as co-perpetrators, accomplices, witnesses and/or active role-players. The decision to brief such individuals in the matter was taken by the NDPP/NPA,” Zuma said in his letter.
Zuma also rubbished and labelled as misleading the NPA’s submission before the Pietermaritzburg High Court that he had no right or “lacks the requisite peculiar interest” in the prosecution in terms of section 7(1)(a) of the Criminal Procedure Act.
“It has since emerged that this submission was deliberately misleading to the court, in that the NPA was in possession of an opinion penned by its current legal representatives, stating, correctly so, that Mr Zuma seemed to have the requisite interest.
“This opinion was notably not disclosed to the court as is the duty in motion proceedings,” Zuma said.
Zuma’s lawyers went to add that the December 2022 summons which the former head of state Ramaphosa in his private capacity in respect of alleged crimes committed by him while acting in his official capacity as President, were directly connected to the charges against Downer.
Zuma, through his lawyers, said that he reasonably believed that Batohi not only had full knowledge of all the illegal and criminal activities in relation to the leaking of his confidential medical records and the misleading submissions to the court, but that she was centrally involved in their planning or execution.
“That being so it is incumbent upon you as President to institute an urgent enquiry into the NDPP’s and or Deputy National Director of Public Prosecutions’s fitness to hold their respective offices as they seemingly pose a danger to the Constitution and to the people of South Africa due to their repeated display of a lack of prosecutorial independence as enshrined in the Constitution, especially section 179(4) thereof, as well as the various other applicable domestic and international instruments which are binding on the NDPP, the DNDPP and or NPA,” Zuma argued through his lawyers.
SUNDAY TRIBUNE