Durban - A group of KwaZulu-Natal lawyers have backed President Jacob Zuma, and accused his adversaries of taking the Constitutional Court judgment too far by using it to demand the resignation of “the lawfully elected president”.
Among the legal minds supporting the beleaguered president is city lawyer Comfort Ngidi, who is the chairman of the Progressive Professionals Forum.
Ngidi said a group of about 25 lawyers and concerned influential members of the public had held a meeting at Durban’s Coastlands Hotel, at South Beach, on Thursday night to analyse the judgment.
Ngidi said those calling for Zuma’s resignation based their call on “hatred for Zuma and his party” instead of the court’s findings.
“The court’s decision is quite clear. It has not said the president must resign.
“In my view it (the call for Zuma to quit) must be condemned in the strongest terms possible because it is inconsistent with the judgment,” said Ngidi.
Ngidi said those calling for Zuma’s head acted hypocritically, as they had never done so when the court had ruled against government policies “many times” before.
“They (Constitutional Court judges) have held decisions of the Parliament to be inconsistent with the constitution, and they have given directions on how to correct that. Nobody was ever asked to resign.
“If you go to law reports there is a long list of cases where the court had decided that laws passed by Parliament, the actions of the president, the actions of the premier, and many many other people were inconsistent with the constitution.
“Have they ever asked anybody to resign? No, no.”
He said the judgment by Judge President Mogoeng Mogoeng was not remarkable in comparison with previous judgments by the same court, “whereas people are trying to make it special”.
Following the judgment last week, the DA filed a motion for the National Assembly to impeach Zuma.
The DA and other opposition parties accused the president of having acted inconsistently with the constitution by not implementing Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s remedial action to pay back part of R246 million the state had spent on non-security measures in his Nkandla homestead.
The ANC majority voted against the DA motion.
Also ANC veterans such as Cheryl Carolus, former Cosatu leader Zwelinzima Vavi, former Constitutional Court justice Zak Yacoob and senior church leaders this week made a call for Zuma to step down.
They said the court ruling had rendered Zuma unfit to lead the country since he had failed to protect the constitution.
“We have given ourselves the task of reading the judgment, and explaining it to the public. We are going to go out and explain it, as we did with Thuli Madonsela’s report.
“Anything not contained in the judgment we will reject because it is not part of the judgment,” said Ngidi.
He said their campaign was meant to protect the dignity of the court rather than protect Zuma.
“If the court makes an order we must respect the order, we must not ask for more,” he said.
However, the executive secretary of the Council for the Advancement of the Constitution (Casac), Lawson Naidoo, said the court findings, in his interpretation, meant that Zuma had violated the constitution.
“The court did not use the word violate, but that is what it meant.
“The court also found that the president was in breach of his responsibility under section 83 of the constitution. That is the responsibility to uphold and respect the constitution,” he said.
However, he said it was only up to the National Assembly to decided Zuma’s fate.
The Mercury