Zuma not above the law: Top cops fail law and order

Jacob Zuma has, once again, stolen himself some legal breathing space … but in the process, he has put the entire system of law in this country under severe threat.

His whole attitude, over more than two decades of defiance – first on actual charges of corruption and then on his refusal to come clean at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture – has been one of emphasising that he is above the law.

However, worryingly for the future of justice and law and order in South Africa, Zuma this week gained willing accomplices in that assault on the rule of law, in the form of Police Minister Bheki Cele and police commissioner Khela Sitole.

The top cops blatantly told the Constitutional Court that they would not be enforcing its order to arrest Zuma to make him serve the 15-month jail sentence the court imposed on him for contempt.

Their argument – entirely in their own heads and without any legal foundation whatsoever – was that the legal processes related to Zuma were not yet over, because the high court and Constitutional Court still had to consider his pleas to have the jail order rescinded and arrest order set aside.

Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi described Zuma in yesterday’s high court hearing about the stay of incarceration as “a repetitive, recalcitrant lawbreaker” – and we see no reason to quibble with that description.

However, how then must we describe Cele and Sitole, who have decided, in holding off their action, to break the law?

The police have already shown reluctance to do anything about egregious violations of lockdown regulations by supporters of Zuma, but also earlier by supporters of Ace Magashule and the EFF.

The law, apparently, means nothing when it involves a high-profile figure who can threaten mayhem.

This is the road to anarchy.

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