Former President Jacob Zuma has suffered an eighth legal loss in his campaign to privately prosecute State Advocate Billy Downer SC and legal reporter Karyn Maughan, after the Constitutional Court unanimously rejected his latest appeal application – with costs, reports News24.

‘The court has concluded that the application for leave to appeal does not engage its jurisdiction,’ the Constitutional Court stated in a two-page order.

Zuma wanted the apex court to order the SCA – which had summarily dismissed his private prosecution appeal application – to hear and decide that case.

He brought that application after SCA President Mahube Molemela dismissed his application for a reconsideration of that summary dismissal.

In a two-page order, Molemela had found ‘no exceptional circumstances warranting reconsideration or variation of the decision refusing (Zuma's) application for leave to appeal’ the KZN High Court (Pietermaritzburg) invalidation of his private prosecution.

Three full Bench rulings have confirmed that Zuma's attempt to charge Downer and Maughan over the sharing of public court papers, which contained a ‘vague’ sick note from one of his doctors, was an abuse of process, which had been pursued as part of the former President's ‘Stalingrad’ strategy of avoiding trial for arms deal corruption with futile litigation and endless appeals.

Zuma and his French arms company co-accused Thales are now seeking a summary acquittal, on the basis that the state's case against them has been unduly delayed and that this has compromised their right to a fair trial.

Full News24 report