Civil activist group, the SA First Forum, has asked the Legal Practice Council and the Johannesburg Society of Advocates to investigate the conduct of former President Jacob Zuma’s legal team after his recent, unsanctioned walkout at the State Capture Commission.

In the complaint to the council, notes Business Day, the forum’s convener, Advocate Rod Solomons, asked it to determine whether Zuma’s legal team, led by Advocate Muzi Sikhakhane, was ‘irresponsible and unprofessional in how they advised and represented’ Zuma during its recent application for the recusal of Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo.

Zuma’s exit – without permission from Zondo and despite a summons requiring him to face questioning by the commission – resulted in Zondo laying a criminal charge against Zuma.

‘Mr Zuma and his legal team’s walking out of the proceedings of the Zondo commission, without the approval of its chairperson ... can be regarded as a direct attack on our criminal justice system,’ Solomons said in the letter.

'Clearly Mr Zuma could not have engaged in such an action without the advice of his legal team.’

In his complaint to the council’s chair, Kathleen Matolo-Dlepu, he pointed out that Zuma’s legal team, as officers of court, ‘should have been aware that a witness summonsed to appear cannot just leave without the express approval of the presiding officer’.

The forum argued that the action of Zuma’s lawyers ‘brought the legal profession and administration of justice into disrepute’.

In its letter, it flagged Sikhakhane’s behaviour, in particular instances where he allegedly gestured and pointed at Zondo ‘in a disparaging manner’.

Solomons said in the letter that ‘a line in the sand needs to be drawn’ to prevent such actions becoming ‘the order of the day in such proceedings’.

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