Zuma’s parole ruling has more than political implications for many South Africans

The ruling by the High Court in Pretoria that former president Jacob Zuma’s medical parole be set aside has more than political implications for many South Africans.

There is general agreement that the looting mayhem that engulfed KwaZulu-Natal and parts of Gauteng was caused by economic helplessness, but the trigger was the sending of Zuma to prison. The public cannot be blamed for throwing their hands up in despair at the thought of that mayhem playing itself out all over again.

But the real question is: should the law be set aside because of the fear of what might go wrong if Zuma is sent to jail?

It would certainly benefit Zuma and his supporters if a political solution were to be found for his legal problems but as Judge Elias Matojane pointed out, any decision that is arrived at outside of court that sets aside the original Constitutional Court decision to send the former president to jail is a violation of the constitution itself.

It is important to recall what Zuma is being sent to jail for because the soundtrack to the horror movie that played itself out on the streets in July was the rhetorical “wenzeni uZuma? (What has Jacob Zuma done wrong?)” Short answer: he walked out of court. The court in this case being the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture hearing headed by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo.

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The former president is accused of a lot of other things during his tenure as president but it must remain clear that his current troubles stem from that single defiant act of walking out of court. And when given permission by the highest court in the land to say why he mustn’t be sent to jail for two years, he ripped into the court’s integrity.

The pandemic has only been around for 20 months, but people are already suffering from pandemic fatigue.

Zuma as a news item has been going on for more than 20 years and it is quite understandable that people just want to be rid of all the negativity that surrounds his legal cases. But they fail to realise that simply declaring that “he’s too old and jailing him will cause untold misery to the country” is as good as saying let’s put aside the one thing that makes South Africa a country.

That one thing is the constitution.

A country is not a country only because of its geographical borders, economic infrastructure and its people. It is a country because the inhabitants of those borders agree on rules to live by – the constitution. Those rules are sacrosanct.

So much so that the people of South Africa decided they need a special court to look after the rules that make them a country. That special court was made to be the highest court in the land and the rulings it makes cannot be taken to a higher court. The order to send Zuma to jail was made by that court.

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The country might burn (again) if he eventually walks into jail. But the unpalatable choice for South Africans is between the chaos they experienced in July (hopefully with better security cluster preparation this time around) or being strong-armed into going against the document that makes this country a country.

The sad thing that’s not said enough is that Zuma could have avoided all of this had he not walked out of the Zondo commission.