All eyes are on the Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) which will today deliver judgment in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s bid to interdict his predecessor, Jacob Zuma.

As previously reported, Zuma’s legal team last week accused Ramaphosa of abusing court processes and state resources to avoid his day in court.

The President is seeking urgent relief from after Zuma charged him with being an accessory after the fact in the case against state prosecutor Billy Downer and journalist Karyn Maughan. Zuma charged Downer and Maughan with allegedly contravening the NPA Act, over the disclosure of a medical note from his doctor – without the authorisation of the NDPP – that was filed during Zuma’s arms deal corruption trial in August 2021. 

A full Bench of the court reserved judgment.

Deputy Judge President Roland Sutherland and Judges Edwin Molahlehi and Marcus Senyatsi said they would deliver judgment this morning.

Advocate Vuyani Ngalwana SC notes that Ramaphosa has sought costs of his application to be paid by his predecessor, alternatively by his predecessor’s legal representatives, and any other respondent that opposes the application, on an attorney and own-client scale, such costs to include the costs of two counsel.

In an article on his Anchored in Law site, he notes that attorney and client costs are on a higher scale than ‘party and party’ scale of costs.

‘They are usually reserved for litigants who are regarded by the court as litigating vexatiously or in bad faith or recklessly or generally in abuse of the processes of the court. However, at the start of argument, the President’s lawyers withdrew the costs claim against lawyers and sought costs only against the former President and on the lower party and party scale. The former President argued that the President’s application is not urgent and that the court has no jurisdiction to entertain it.’

Full analysis on Anchored in Law site

While Zuma successfully convicting Ramaphosa is a legal impossibility, the case brings to the fore the relationship between the two Presidents, and asks more questions about Zuma’s real intentions.

In a Daily Maverick analysis, Stephen Grootes writes that the case suggests that Zuma is focused on his own personal agenda, and in weakening anyone who is trying to ‘renew’ the ANC.

‘Literally no one has faced a private criminal prosecution based on their actions in office. The closest anyone has come so far was the former Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini, who was convicted of perjury – we’re talking about lying in an inquiry into her conduct, rather than for her actions while in office. Still, several lawyers think that Ramaphosa’s lawyers may not have proven the issue of ‘urgency’ in their application, meaning there is a chance the President could still have to appear in the dock, albeit briefly. What Zuma has succeeded in doing is making sure that the consequences of his actions have been rather present in the news cycle during the ANC’s December conference, painting Ramaphosa as an embattled politician just in time for the party’s critical elections. A man who has shown himself to be capable of doing almost anything to bring pressure on his enemies, including burning KZN and half of Gauteng in July 2021, Zuma was certainly hoping to force Ramaphosa into making mistakes.’

Full analysis on the Daily Maverick site