Johannesburg – The African National Congress in KwaZulu-Natal said that it could not sit on the sidelines while there were challenges emanating from former President Jacob Zuma’s legal battles.
The provincial structure said that it wanted the party’s national executive committee to allow them to join Zuma’s bid to appeal the High Court ruling which set aside the decision to release him on parole in September.
The former president was arrested in July for contempt of court after he failed to appear before the state capture commission of inquiry and was released after serving just two months of his 15-month sentence.
ANC KZN secretary Mdumiseni Ntuli said that while they shouldn’t be influenced by external factors when making judgments, judges cannot simply ignore the implications of their decision.
“I also do not agree that in themselves making court judgments they must be absolutely oblivious to the context within which the judgment is made,” said Ntuli.
He said that they were taking this stance because they did not want to see a repeat of the July mayhem that followed Zuma’s arrest.
“We cannot allow the country to go back to the same situation that we saw in July without doing something to prevent it,” Ntuli added.
The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has called on citizens to exercise restraint and allow the law to run its course, while Cabinet’s security cluster said that it had learned lessons from the unrest.
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