Former president Jacob Zuma was politically correct to shun the Zondo commission, a decision that resulted in his imprisonment after the Constitutional Court sent him there.
This is according to the outspoken Adv Muzi Sikhakhane SC, who represented Zuma during his application seeking to have the commission’s chairperson, retired Chief
Justice Raymond Zondo, recuse himself.
After Zondo refused to grant the recusal, Zuma decided not to appear before the man he insisted was conflicted because of their strong personal ties.
Sikhakhane, who was speaking to Sunday World Engage in a wide-ranging interview about the politics of the judiciary and whose book is selling faster than a newly released version of the iPhone to slay queens, said the Zondo commission was a sham that was designed to nail certain people, Zuma included.
Sikhakhane, who is still offended by those who believe that he misled Zuma as his legal representative, insists that it was Zuma who decided to shun Zondo, but at a political level, he concurred with the decision.
The author of the best-selling Odyssey of Liberation: Memoirs of a Rebel Advocate said the
Zondo commission was meant to be a slaughterhouse for Zuma, to hang him on the cross for all to see and humiliate him and his legacy forever.
“Therefore, politically, Zuma had checkmated his opponents by deciding not to appear at
“the sham.”
In those matters, you must also understand politics; if Zuma was guilty of anything, the police should have pounced on him. So, we also understood that what was at the heart of that commission was not to find Zuma guilty but to put him on the stand and humiliate him and destroy anything he stands for.”
“We (Zuma’s legal team) knew that when you are involved in political cases, you cannot be there and not understand political strategy. Of course, we realised Zuma was right by saying, ‘I’m not going there’, because he is not guilty of anything. The Hawks do not need a commission to arrest you when there is evidence against you.
“We saw through their strategy and countered it; we did not put him on the stand to be
humiliated – the drama they wanted,” he went on.
“They know we defeated them, and that is why their hatred is big. Yes, we are lawyers, but we know political strategy. Once the process is no longer fair to a client, I cannot send him to the gallows. I, too, did not trust that process.”
Sikhakhane is of the firm view that the commission lost credibility and legitimacy as a fact-finding mission on take-off when it gave a platform to two so-called state capture experts from overseas, whose version was not scrutinised by seeking alternative views.
From then on, he charged; the whole thing was marred by contradictions and double
standards that were too glaring to ignore.
Among examples of contradictions that he believes are bizarre is the fact that the commission wanted to force Zuma to state his version at all costs, to the point of sending him to jail, while it denied one of Sikhakhane’s clients, former spy chief Arthur Fraser, the opportunity to speak when he was begging to cross-examine his accusers.
“Fraser applied to cross-examine his accusers, and his accusers did not object; the commission objected. What type of judge? What type of legal process opposes a cross-examination of people who are accusing somebody?” asked Sikhakhane.
“That commission was not a legal process. It was a political process designed to scapegoat people. It was a sham!
“And it is no insult to the Judge (Zondo) and other colleagues who were involved; maybe they are naïve, or they were part of it.”
