PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa has been granted an interim interdict to halt any further steps to continue with private prosecution against him.
The application for his private prosecution was brought by former president Jacob Zuma.
Zuma accused Ramaphosa of being an “accessory after the fact” in his other case against prosecutor Billy Downer and journalist Karyn Maughan or obstructing the course of justice by facilitating them to evade justice.
In a judgment handed down on Monday, 16 January by the Joburg High Court Deputy Judge President Roland Sutherland, the full bench found that Zuma would suffer no harm if the private prosecution was halted.
“As to the balance of convenience, the respondent (Zuma) suffers no harm if there is a delay in the private prosecution in order to debate the controversies alluded to in this judgment,” said Sutherland.
On the other hand, the three judges found that the harm Ramaphosa would suffer by subjecting himself in the private prosecution process, which he claimed was unlawful, could not be undone.
The private prosecution matter was supposed to start on Thursday in the same court.
In his argument last week, Zuma said the private prosecutor exercises statutory authority and must be treated like the public prosecutor.
Sutherland said this was not correct.
“The respondent’s contention is untenable. The litigative scheme in terms of which the statutory authority, which the powers to conduct the prosecution of persons is vested and in a given case declines to prosecute, must not be understood to be a delegation of statutory authority to the private prosecutor,” said Sutherland.
Zuma accused Downer and Maughan of leaking his confidential medical records in the arms deal case, and he is charging the president for failing to act against them.
Sutherland said their trial was yet to begin, and their conviction was a necessary condition for the criminal liability of Ramaphosa.
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) distanced itself from the nolle certificates used by Zuma to summons Ramaphosa, and said it only applied to people who had been specifically mentioned in the docket linked to his charges against Downer.
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“The president was not mentioned in any of the affidavits or statements and thus the certificates were not issued in relation to him,” it said in a statement.
Sutherland agreed with the NPA and said Ramaphosa was not mentioned in the complaint laid with the police.
Judgment on costs was reserved.
