In a move seen by the doubters as the NPA being drawn into President Jacob Zuma's 'Stalingrad strategy' to delay as long as possible the day when he will have to face up to corruption charges, National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) Shaun Abrahams did what everybody who has been following the matter expected he would do – appeal the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) ruling setting aside the 'irrational' decision to drop the charges. 

Interestingly, he left it to the last legal minute, as did Zuma, as they announced their decisions to seek the court's permission to challenge the ruling of a three-judge Bench in favour of the DA's motion to reinstate the long-ago abandoned 783 corruption and fraud charges the President may yet avoid having to face.

Zuma was a winner in another NPA matter in the Western Cape High Court this week, but whether that signals a change in fortunes remains to be seen.

We'll know more on June 10 when the High Court will hear the NPA and Zuma's applications for leave to appeal.    

Legal experts argue the appeal has no chance of success, and suggest Abrahams had bowed to political pressure. One expert, Advocate Francois Botes, warned the NPA against being caught in a game to protect Zuma’s political career.

According to a Cape Times report, Botes said the NPA was playing for time and trying to avoid the unavoidable.

‘My personal view is that there is no prospect of success in the SCA,’ he is quoted as saying.

Professor Dirk Kotze, of the department of political sciences at Unisa, said the decision to appeal was delaying arguably the most difficult decision for the NPA.

He said the matter was exceptionally political in nature, and it was impossible to claim that political considerations or pressure are not part of it. 

Constitutional law professor Pierre de Vos was more forthright. A Beeld report notes that De Vos pointed to two previous judgments of the SCA that both pronounced on an issue raised in the NPA's appeal. In one judgment, back in 2009, the SCA held that an 'improper motive' was irrelevant in the decision to prosecute or not.

De Vos said the NPA had about as much chance of a successful appeal as a 'Bafana Bafana wing scoring the winning try in the next World Cup'.

Institute for Accountability director Paul Hofmann said Abrahams had lost the opportunity to prove his independence and should have left the DA and Zuma to fight it out.

‘The fact that he has not done so and that he has put out weak grounds for the appeal suggests, to the objective observer, that he is not independent as he protests to be,’ Hofmann is quoted as saying in a report in The Herald.

Former head of the NPA Vusi Pikoli also believes the NPA chances of success are slim. 

‘National Director of Public Prosecutions Shaun Abrahams has the right to take the decision to appeal, but the issue lies on the grounds. They look quite thin, I must confess,’ was his comment on the issue. However, Tshwane University of Technology political analyst Professor Lucky Mathebula supported Abrahams.

‘It is a move towards defending the prosecutorial powers against the judiciary,’ he said. 

Full report in The Herald (subscription needed)

Full Beeld report

Full Cape Times report (subscription needed)