The State Capture Inquiry is yet to respond to Jacob Zuma's three-month-old legal bid to force Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo's recusal because the former President went after Zondo in his personal rather than official capacity, notes legal writer Karyn Maughan in a News24 report.

Last year, Zuma's lawyers filed a Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) challenge to Zondo's refusal to ‘recuse himself from presiding over those matters that pertain to (Zuma) and his family’.

They gave the inquiry 15 working days in which to file a record of the proceedings that led to the Deputy Chief Justice declining to step down as commission chairperson. But, despite filing a notice that it would oppose Zuma's application, the inquiry has failed to file any such record.

Nor has it filed any reply to Zuma's 530-page recusal review application.

The former President and his lawyers contended this was a valid basis for him refusing to appear before the commission and answer non-incriminating questions, despite being ordered to do so by the Constitutional Court.

In the ordinary course of events, the inquiry should have filed that reply last month, notes the report.

Sources, whom News24 says have 'intimate knowledge of the facts', have, however, revealed it was Zuma’s decision to cite Zondo in his personal capacity that had resulted in the case stalling.

One such source reportedly said the inquiry initially believed Zuma had mistakenly cited Zondo and had asked his lawyers to correct what they perceived to be an ‘error’.

This is because it is almost unheard of for a judge heading an inquiry to be cited in his or her personal capacity in a legal challenge related to the commission that he or she is chairing.

Zuma's lawyers have, however, refused to budge, resulting in an impasse that threatens to delay the case indefinitely.

The inquiry's failure to file a substantial response to Zuma's recusal application has not been exploited by the former President's lawyers, who could have pushed for the disclosure of the record or demanded that the case be heard without a response from the inquiry.

Arguably, however, notes Maughan's News24 report, the failure of Zuma's lawyers to push for this case to be resolved suggests that his recusal review application was not ever intended to be heard – but rather to be used as a political weapon in the former President's war against the inquiry and its chairperson.

Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, who is acting for the inquiry in its application to have Zuma imprisoned for contempt, last week faced multiple questions from the Constitutional Court about whether Zuma's recusal case was a valid legal defence for him failing to comply with its ruling that he appear before the commission. 

Justice Leona Theron asked Ngcukaitobi what the impact would be if Zuma succeeded in his recusal review case ‘at some point in the future’.

Ngcukaitobi said any success Zuma might have in his recusal challenge against Zondo and the inquiry was ‘wholly irrelevant to the contempt of court’ because it did not override the fact there was a Constitutional Court ruling that compelled him to appear before the commission.

In his challenge to Zondo's refusal to recuse himself as inquiry chairperson, Zuma argued the commission's alleged failure to investigate his claims that foreign and apartheid spies have been trying to kill him confirmed his suspicion the Deputy Chief Justice was biased against him.

‘If the chairperson had bothered to investigate my claims, he would have found that he had been selected and appointed by the Chief Justice to preside over a political project,’ Zuma stated, adding he believed this political project was ‘being executed through the commission’.

He argued, according to News24, that his perception of Zondo's bias against him was based ‘on the objective fact that the commission simply ignored the extraordinary allegations that I made regarding the manipulation of our democratic system by foreign agencies working with internal ones’.

Full News24 report (subscription needed)