Former President Jacob Zuma’s D-Day has arrived.
Acting Correctional Services Commissioner Makgothi Thobakgale will make a decision by Thursday on whether Zuma is returning to prison or not.
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In June 2021, the Constitutional Court sentenced Zuma to 15 months in prison for contempt for failing to appear before the State Capture Commission of Investigation.
He was released on medical parole after only two months.
Both the High Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) later ruled that this was unlawful.
But, that judgement left it up to Thobakgale to decide whether Zuma’s time on medical parole should still count as time served.
Acting Correctional Services Commissioner Makgothi Thobakgale’s office announced last week that he will make a decision by Thursday.
It remains to be seen what outcome will be made.
In the meantime, the idea of Zuma returning to prison has fueled fears of a repetition of the violence that followed his initial arrest in 2021.
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Yet it’s worth remembering why the Constitutional Court took the unprecedented step of imprisoning a former president in the first place.
Justice Sisi Khampepe, in the majority judgment, said: “If the impression were to be created that court orders are not binding, or can be flouted with impunity, the future of the Judiciary, and the rule of law, would indeed be bleak.”
Zuma was in Russia undergoing medical treatment when the Constitutional Court issued its decision last month. Nonetheless, he has now returned to South Africa.
