Former President Jacob Zuma was dealt a blow after his private prosecution of President Cyril Ramaphosa was declared unlawful by the Gauteng High Court. Photo: Gallo Images/Alet Pretorius
While some political parties and citizens have reacted angrily to the release of Jacob Zuma from prison, former public protector Thuli Madonsela said she supports the remission of the former president’s sentence. She said it is “ubuntu anchored”.
The Department of Correctional Services (DCS) on Friday announced its decision on whether to jail Zuma following the Constitutional Court (ConCourt)’s dismissal of an appeal relating to his release on medical parole in September 2021.
National Commissioner of Correctional Services Makgothi Samuel Thobakgale said Zuma reported to the Estcourt Correctional Services facility on Friday at 6am where he was processed and left after 7am.
As a result of the remission, Zuma will not be on the parole system.
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Madonsela said she supports the remission of Zuma’s sentence.
“The point regarding no one being above the law has been made and the teaching power of the law leveraged. Nothing more could be gained through further incarceration. There’s also the fact his release was the state’s mistake.”
Helen Suzman Foundation director Nicole Fritz agreed with Madonsela.
“I agree with this and am grateful that a person of Thuli Madonsela’s standing would make this point. We might read it as a capitulation to threats. But there is another reading: that an inmate not be required to pay the price of the state’s illegality.
“Sure, we might suspect that Fraser and Zuma together inveigled a scheme to overturn the Medical Parole Advisory’s Board’s decision. But there is no proof that Fraser, while acting for the benefit of Zuma, was acting at his behest,” Fritz said.
Zuma, who was jailed for 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 boss Arthur Fraser.
However, the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) ruled that Zuma’s release on medical parole by Fraser, was unlawful.
It was left to Thobakgale to decide whether the time Zuma spent on medical parole should count as time served and thus took a decision, in compliance with the SCA ruling, that the former president must go back to jail.
However, President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a proclamation on Thursday for a remission of the sentences for 9 488 prisoners who are considered to be low risk, in an attempt to relieve overcrowding in the country’s prisons. This decision also benefitted Zuma.
The DCS said it would release the number of offenders freed on Friday by the end of the day.
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