Johannesburg - Former president Jacob Zuma has accused the Helen Suzman Foundation (HSF), AfriForum and the DA of wanting to humiliate him.
The three have hauled Zuma to the North Gauteng High Court in a bid to overturn the Department of Correctional Services’ decision to grant the ex-president medical parole.
On Tuesday, Zuma’s lawyer Thabani Masuku SC told North Gauteng High Court Judge Keoagile Matojane that he should dismiss the application as the applicants (the HSF, AfriForum and the DA) had no locus standi (standing) to bring the application.
He said that granting the application would have no practical legal effect and that they were asking for Zuma’s right to privacy to be violated as it would would lead to the former president’s medical records being splashed in newspapers.
”They are seeking to humiliate Mr Zuma,” Masuku said, adding that they wanted the former ANC leader to come out of prison only when he was about to die.
He said the HSF, AfriForum and the DA were political organisations and Zuma their political foe.
”They want to humiliate Zuma. Zuma doesn’t have a duty to disclose his medical conditions to his political opponents.”
Masuku said Zuma was still in prison because he was serving his sentence despite being medically paroled.
”There is no urgency met by the applicant. They don’t have the full facts.”
Masuku said the applicants had no claim to Zuma’s medical privacy and that the issue was not so urgent that it warranted the high court’s intervention.
”The interests of justice would require that what they require is a moot remedy,” he said.
loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za
Political Bureau