President Zuma failed to uphold, defend the Constitution - ConCourt

31st March 2016

By: News24Wire

  

Font size: - +

The Public Protector's remedial action against President Jacob Zuma over the upgrades to his Nkandla home were binding, the Constitutional Court said on Thursday.

"The remedial action taken against the president has a binding effect," said Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng.

"The president failed to uphold, defend and respect the Constitution."

He said that if compliance with the public protector's remedial action were optional, then very few would allow it to have any effect.

"And if by design it never had a binding effect then [it would be] incomprehensible how the Public Protector could be effective," Mogoeng said.

Public Protector Thuli Madonsela had found that upgrades which were done on President Jacob Zuma's homestead were not all security upgrades, as stated.

She found that Zuma had unduly benefited from some of the upgrades which included the building of an amphitheatre, a cattle kraal, a chicken run and swimming pool, among other things.

As a course of remedial action, she recommended that he pay back a portion of the funds used for the upgrades.

Madonela's report however, was set aside by the National Assembly after Zuma made submissions on why he should not pay back the funds. An ad hoc comittee led by the Minister of Police also backed Zuma's report and exonerated him from upholding the report. 

The DA and EFF were among the parties that took the matter to the Constitutional Court, arguing that the Public Protectors' report cannot be ignored.

News24.com

Edited by News24Wire

Comments

The content you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.

If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.

If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.

For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION