Gauteng judge president, Dunstan Mlambo, has lashed out at President Jacob Zuma in his judgment on a cost order after Zuma applied to interdict the release of the damning Public Protector's report on State Capture.
In a hard-hitting judgment, Justice Mlambo said the President was grossly remiss in ignoring earlier indications going back to October 2016, that the report by the Public Protector had been finalised and that she had signed the report.
He said that the door had thus been firmly shut by the previous public protector.
Judge Mlambo said the President's persistence with the litigation in the face of the finality of the report and the later statement confirming this amounts to objectionable conduct by a litigant and clear abuse of the Judicial process.
"The conduct of the President and the context of the litigation he initiated requires a sterner rebuke. There is not the slightest doubt that properly considered, the background of the matter and circumstances of the litigation show that President Zuma had no acceptable basis in law to have persisted in this litigation. In fact, the President's conduct amounts to an attempt to stymie the fulfilment of a constitutional obligation by the office of the Public Protector," he said.
Justice Mlambo ruled that President Zuma should pay the cost of the litigation out of his own pocket.
"In the final analysis, the President's overall conduct leaves one with no option but to find that he must be held personally liable for all the costs that were occasioned from 14 October 2016 when he forestated that the previous public protector had finalised the investigation and signed the report. The President is ordered to personally pay the costs referred to in paragraph three of the order made by this court on 1 November 2016 to the extent that such costs were incurred after 14 October 2016," Mlambo added.
