FORMER president Jacob Zuma will know on Friday if he can appeal the Pietermaritzburg High Court decision dismissing his application for a permanent stay of prosecution.
Arguments between the state and Zuma’s defence team were heard in the High Court last Friday. Zuma wasn’t in court.
His defence team, led by Advocate Muzi Sikhakhane, argued why the court should grant Zuma leave to appeal.
He said he believed a higher court would come to a different conclusion and pleaded with judges Bhekisisa Mnguni, Esther Steyn and Thoba Poyo-Dlwathi to allow his application to be heard by the Supreme Court of Appeal.
Sikhakhane said the then NPA head Leonard McCarthy and former NPA boss Bulelani Ngcuka discussing in the so-called spy tapes that he must be charged before the 2007 ANC elective conference was a clear violation of the NPA’s constitution.
The state said Zuma’s application was another delaying tactic. Prosecutor Andrew Breitenbach said Zuma’s lawyers had conceded in the Supreme Court of Appeal that then acting NPA head Mokotedi Mpshe’s decision to rely on the spy tapes to drop charges was wrong.
Last month the court dismissed Zuma’s application to have his case struck off the roll. It said Zuma’s charges were more serious than the prejudice he claimed to have suffered.
