Former president Jacob Zuma, who made international headlines for filing a contested sick note in a high court earlier this month, will attend the opening of parliament on Thursday, according to Parliament.
Zuma's attendance at the State Of the Nation Address (SONA) was confirmed by parliament and the government on their official Twitter accounts on Thursday.
The Democratic Alliance swiftly responded by saying that if the former president was well enough to attend parliament, he was well enough to appear in the court preparing for his corruption trial.
Judge Dhaya Pillay raised questions about the one-page certificate and issued a warrant for Zuma's arrest due to his non-appearance. The warrant was stayed and will only be executed if he again fails to appear in court on May 6, the next scheduled date in pre-trial proceedings ahead of his corruption trial.
DA chief whip Natasha Mazzone pointed out that the medical certificate Zuma's lawyers presented to the Pietermaritzburg High Court, signed by a military doctor, on 4 February, had reportedly declared him unfit until April.
"Mr Zuma was too sick to attend his trial at the Pietermaritzburg division of the KwaZulu-Natal High Court and too sick to attend the Zondo Commission yet now he is seemingly fit as a fiddle to travel all the way to Cape Town to attend the pomp and pageantry that is SONA," Mazzone said.
