In what is being hailed as one of the most significant legal decisions in South African history the Constitutional Court has jailed disgraced former President Jacob Zuma for 15 months for contempt of court.

Zuma has five days to hand himself in to police.

Failing this, Police Minister Bheki Cele is ordered to do whatever necessary to ensure Zuma goes to jail.

This is a first time a former South African president has been sentenced to imprisonment,

Not even leaders during the apartheid era suffered such punishment.

Zuma defied a Constitutional Court order to appear before the Zondo Commission into state corruption.

He had earlier walked out of the commission, refusing to appear again if Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, whom he claims has close familial ties with him, recuses himself.

sub head Accuses state of politically motivated camapaign

Zuma accuses the state of mounting a politically motivated campaign  against him.

Zuma faces corruption charges in the KwauluNatal High court involving five billion euros misappropriated before he was president

He has rounded on the Constitutional Court saying it behaved like an apartheid institution

Acting Chief Justice Sisi Khampepe, reading the 7-2 majority judgment,  regretted that Zuma “has elected to make unmeritorious, vituperative remarks calculated to impugn the integrity of the judiciary called his remarks

She said it would serve no purpose to impose a suspended sentence on Zuma in the hope of getting him to comply because that would only give him further reason to delay.

She awarded unitive costs against Zuma.

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Even the Constitutional Court judges could not agree

The ex-president’s spokesman Mzwanele Manyi say if the nine Constitutional Court judges could not agree on a ruling, it was surely not possible for a layman to accept it.

He would not comment on the whereabouts of Zuma who was not in the Constitutional Court and said a more comprehensive response to the judgement would be made later

Split judgements are commonplace in the Constitutional Court and even the minority judgment agreed that Zuma was guilty of contempt of court.

The ANC military win Umkhonto We Sizwe has sent members to Zuma’s at Nkanadla and vowed to protect him from arrest.

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Daughter says he is in good spirits

Zuma’s daughter Dudu Zuma Sambudia says he has spoken to her father since the judgment and found him him in good spirits.

He plans to hand himself to  police at  Nkandla and members of his family will accompany him to Gauteng, which is currently closed to outsiders because of stricter COVID 19 lockdown restrictions imposed this week.

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Parliament now has to amend the necessary legislation and decide on the quantity of the drug that will constitute private use.

By legalizing cannabis, Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo was upholding a Western Cape High Court ruling permitting  the private use of marijuana.

Zondo ruled that the expectation of privacy of individuals was not limited to one’s home or place of residence. 

The state, which argues that cannabis is a dangerous gateway drug, had brought the case to the Constitutional Court 

South African officials now have to decide how to treat several international conventions it has signed outlawing the drug.

They  must also legislate to stop minors being exposed to it.

Advocates of banning marijuana say legalizing it will lead to overcrowding in rehabilitation centers and a spike in mental illness. 

Hundreds of pro cannabis supporters, who have been lobbying for this outcome for decades, were outside the court in Johannesburg.

Their dreadlocked spokesman Gareth Prince lauded the fact that South Africa had broken with Western mores by allowing its people to use what he called their traditional tobacco.

They were joined by traditional healers, known as sangomas, who have long used cannabis for its medicinal properties.

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