LETTER: Jacob Zuma gets some of his own medicine
The former president defamed Billy Downer dreadfully in an affidavit filed in his filibustering application for a permanent stay of his prosecution
Karyn Maughan reports that prosecutor Billy Downer, SC, is fighting back against Jacob Zuma by invoking the newly minted evidential principle that “reckless and odious political posturing” is a definite no-no in court papers (“NPA’s Billy Downer Sues Zuma for ‘Vexatious’ Statements”, April 11). This droll development occurred after Zuma defamed Downer dreadfully in an affidavit filed in his filibustering application for a permanent stay of his prosecution on crimes largely committed in another century. Zuma has been hoist with his own petard. The new take on the law of evidence, a stunning departure from well-established precedent, was fashioned by the majority of the justices in the Constitutional Court in 2014 in the Glenister litigation concerning the Hawks. The expert evidence of Gareth Newham of the Institute for Security Studies and Gavin Woods of Stellenbosch University, playing the role of canaries in the corruption coal mine that constituted Zuma’s administration of crimi...
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