THE Johannesburg High Court on Monday granted South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa an urgent interdict, halting his prosecution in a case brought by his predecessor, Jacob Zuma.
This means that the president will not have to appear in a criminal court as an accused on Thursday, as had been initially scheduled.
Zuma had accused Ramaphosa of being an accessory after the fact in the case he’s filed against a top state advocate and a journalist.
The former president alleges that the pair leaked his medical information, used as evidence in his main arms deal corruption trial.
A full bench led by Deputy Judge President Roland Sutherland found that urgency had been proven by President Ramaphosa’s lawyers, granting him an urgent interdict, Hobnob News reports.
“As to the balance of convenience, the respondent suffers no harm if there was a delay in the private prosecution in order to debate the controversies alluded to in this judgment. As mentioned earlier, the trial of the alleged principal offenders has yet to begin. There, conviction is a necessary condition for criminal liability by the applicant,” Sutherland said.
The interdict halts Ramaphosa’s private prosecution by former President Jacob Zuma for now.
Ramaphosa is challenging the legitimacy of his private prosecution, which will now be heard in a civil court.
