FORMER president Jacob Zuma will find out on Tuesday, 9 April if his name will be on the list to Parliament.
The Electoral Court is expected to hand down its judgment on his challenge against the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC’s) decision to remove his name from the uMkhonto Wesizwe party last month.
This after the commission received objections to Zuma being one of the party’s candidates to the National Assembly (NA).
The MK leader is number one on that list.
Zuma told the court on Monday that the IEC had no authority to prevent him from going to Parliament.
Zuma’s lawyer Advocate Dali Mpofu SC said that it was the NA that could determine if a person was eligible to be a member of Parliament.
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Mpofu told the court that denying Zuma to stand in the 29 May elections would be denying millions of MK supporters who would want the former president to represent them in Parliament.
“When the Constitution disenfranchises somebody, it will not be met with silence,” he said.
In 2021, Zuma was sentenced to 15 months without an option of a fine for ignoring a court order to testify at an inquiry into corruption during his tenure.
Two years later, he was among 9 488 prisoners serving sentences less than two years for non-violent crimes who were granted remission by President Cyril Ramaphosa to cut short their sentences.
According to Section 47 of the Constitution, no person convicted for more than 12 months, without the option of a fine, is allowed to hold public office.
Zuma claimed that the remission he received from Ramaphosa meant that his sentence was cut three months and that made him qualify to be on the ballot.
However, the IEC’s Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi SC said it was wrong to think that the 15-month sentence imposed by the Constitutional Court was reduced to three months after Zuma was granted remission.
He said: “The distinction is that it must be imposed by a judge. The president has no power to impose a sentence.
“The remission never changed the sentence. It never said you are no longer sentenced to 15 months now you are sentenced to three months. It simply determined the period of the release. The executive is entitled to do that.”
He said the electoral commission has the power to decide the objection based on section 47 of the Constitution.
Ngcukaitobi said the reason the lawmakers put the sentence at 12 months was because it was a signal of the seriousness, not only of the conviction, but of the offence.
