POLITICS

State Capture: Zuma must uphold Constitution – SACP

Party says any further delay will deepen public perception that president is preventing investigation

The SACP calls on the President to uphold the Constitution and follow remedial process into the “State of Capture” report.

13 December 2017

The South African Communist Party notes the North Gauteng High Court judgment dismissing all the grounds of President Jacob Zuma's review application against the former Public Protector's "State of Capture" report and particularly its remedial action. The court has reaffirmed the call first made by the SACP of the necessity for the establishment of an independent judicial commission of inquiry into corporate state capture. This is now more urgent than ever. The SACP calls on President Zuma to abide by the rule of law; uphold the Constitution and accordingly follow the remedial process to establish the long overdue independent judicial commission of inquiry into state capture.

Any further waste of time will only serve to deepen the entrenched public perception that the President is either delaying independent judicial investigation or preventing it altogether because he is implicated in the serious allegations of state capture. Particularly the argument by the President, as quoted in the "State of Capture" report, that he could not be a jury and a judge in his own case, referring to why he could not initiate an investigation into allegations implicating him, is central to the logic, now accepted by the court, of the remedial action that while he should appoint a judge to head the commission he should not be the one to select the judge.

The SACP reiterates its call to delegates to the forthcoming ANC national conference to elect leadership committed both in words and in action to combating corruption, corporate state capture and malfeasance in our state. 

Issued by Mhlekwa Nxumalo, Acting National Spokesperson, SACP, 13 December 2017