PRETORIA, November 24 (ANA) – President Jacob Zuma has failed to act appropriately on National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) Shaun Abrahams and two others following their failed attempt to prosecute Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, the high court in Pretoria heard on Thursday.
“He has given no commitment on when he is going to act. What we see here is a pushing out of the boat, by the Presidency, in circumstances where we say he has an urgent obligation to act,” Advocate David Unterhalter SC told a full bench of three judges.
He has failed in his duties as far as that is concerned. That is why the court is asked to intervene. We say this matter is urgent and right for determination.”
Unterhalter was representing civic rights organisations, the Helen Suzman Foundation (HSF) and Freedom Under Law (FUL). The two organisations have approached the court with an application to compel Zuma to suspend the senior NPA officials, which include Abrahams, head of the prosecuting authority’s priority crimes litigation unit Torie Pretorius and North Gauteng director of public prosecutions Sibongile Mzinyathi.
The two civic society groups insist that the top NPA officials must take the blame for bringing baseless criminal charges against Gordhan, a prosecution which they said damaged the reputation of the National Prosecuting Authority and cost the South African economy dearly.
“What is happening in the interim is that these persons (Abrahams, Pretorius and Mzinyathi) continue in office, under circumstances where the harm that they do in the sense of institutional harm just continues and the public says another organisation of constitutional significance is being abused, there is no prompt corrective action being taken to lance the burn,” said Unterhalter.
He said the trio has crashed the plane but still insist on remaining in their jobs.
Zuma has already written to the three NPA officials, asking them to provide reasons why they should not be suspended pending an inquiry into their fitness to hold office. They were given until Monday to do so.
In a bid to counter the HSF and FUL assertions, Advocate Ishmael Semenya, representing Zuma, accused the civic society groups of abusing court processes.
Semenya said HSF and FUL were acting because they believed the incompetence of Abrahams, Pretorius and Mzinyathi was “a done deal”. He denied that the NPA has crashed.
Advocate Hinton Epstein SC, representing Shaun Abrahams, told the court that the NDPP was entitled in law to review the decision to prosecute Gordhan. He said the court application by HSF and FUL had been brought before the court without proper facts.
He submitted that the decision to prosecute is always “a tightrope” and the aeroplane analogy raised by Unterhalter was mere hyperbole because “we are not dealing with pilots and aeroplanes here where one cannot make a mistake”.
The NPA top brass is under enormous pressure after charges were laid, and later withdrawn against Gordhan and former SA Revenue Services officials Ivan Pillay and Oupa Magashula.
– African News Agency (ANA)
