Pretoria – Legal arguments in the DA’s urgent application to force President Jacob Zuma to provide it with the documents and record on which his decision was based to reshuffle his Cabinet, particularly for his reasons axing former finance minister Pravin Gordhan and his deputy, Mcebisi Jonas, will only start at 1pm on Thursday.
The case was on Tuesday postponed to 10am on Thursday, but later moved to start during the lunch break. The arguments are estimated to last for about two and a half hours.
The DA says it urgently needs the record on which Zuma's decision was based, especially the so-called intelligence report.
The urgency arises from a pending review application by the DA to review and set aside Zuma’s decision to dismiss Gordhan and Jonas.
Advocate Steven Budlender, for the DA, will argue that the review application is unable to proceed because the president has refused to provide the record and reasons on which his controversial decision was based.
The DA is now endeavouring to force Zuma through this interlocutory application to provide it with the documents and reasons for the Cabinet reshuffle.
But Zuma maintain that he is empowered through the Constitution to hire and fire and that the decision to axe Gordhan and Jonas, was an executive one.
In his heads of argument which will be presented to Judge Bashier Vally later on Thursday, Advocate Ishmael Semenya SC, accused the DA of being on a “fishing expedition.”
He said the DA is abusing the legal process and is asking the court to dismiss the application with costs, on a punitive scale.
Semenya is of the opinion that the DA is not entitled to any record on which Zuma based his decision to reshuffle his cabinet.
“The president’s decision to reshuffle cabinet is quintessentially one that belongs in the category of executive decisions that deserve protection from disclosure….The applicant is thus not entitled to any record of the decision,” Semenya said in his heads of argument.
He said it is the DA which quotes in the main application the contents of what it calls an “intelligence report” , but it (the DA) does not reveal the full content, source or author of the report.
“It is indeed the applicant that is obliged to produce this report in respect of the main application,” Semenya said.
He questioned how the DA relied on the content of the “report” in launching the main application, yet it is now calling on Zuma to produce this “report.” Semenya called this “absurd.”
Budlender, in return, will argue that only the president knows what documents and facts he relied on in dismissing Gordhan and Jonas and that the key question is whether and to what extent Zuma relied on the so-called intelligence report.
He said it is thus vital that the DA be provided with this report.