Zuma snubs ConCourt again, refuses to propose own punishment
Former president
Jacob Zuma has snubbed the Constitutional Court yet again.
On Wednesday, Zuma wrote to Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng saying he wouldn't depose an affidavit as directed by the highest court in the land.
Zuma told the apex court that he was prepared to face imprisonment to defend his Constitutional rights.
This comes after he was given three days to tell Mogoeng how he should be sentenced if he is found guilty of contempt of court.
The matter relates to his refusal to adhere to a summons to appear before the testimony at the commission of inquiry into state capture.
In a 21-page letter, Zuma told the judiciary he won't take up the opportunity to propose an appropriate sentence.
"I have thought long and hard about the request in your directives. I have also been advised that addressing a letter of this nature to the court is unprecedented as a response to a directive to file an affidavit. However, given the unprecedented nature of my impending imprisonment by the Constitutional Court, we are indeed in unprecedented terrain," he wrote.
"At the outset, I must state that I did not participate in the proceedings before the Constitutional Court and view the directives as nothing but a stratagem to clothe its decision with some legitimacy."
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Zuma labelled Mogoeng's directive as a sham.
"It is disappointing and fortifies my concerns when our apex court engages in what clearly is political or public management of a decision they have already taken.
"In my view, these political gimmicks do not belong in the bench."
Zuma believes the apex court has already found him guilty of contempt of court.
"That is of significant concern to me firstly because the Court would have known that I had decided not to participate in the proceedings of the Court.
“I did not ask for this right to a hearing and since it is an invention of the Chief Justice I would have expected the Chief Justice to have been concerned about the motive of seeking my participation in mitigating by speculating about a decision concealed from me."
The 79-year-old says he's ready to become a prisoner of the Constitutional Court.
