The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has called for the resignation of the five Supreme Court of Appeal judges who turned down the Schabir Shaik appeal, Business Day reported in its Monday edition.
According to the report, Cosatu said the judges misrepresented the findings of the trial judge and damaged the reputation of African National Congress (ANC) deputy president Jacob Zuma.
The call creates an unprecedented situation, with one of the pillars of civil society on a collision course with one of the highest courts in the land, the report read.
Cosatu’s calls followed a report published in the Weekender that said Judge Hilary Squires denied he found a ”generally corrupt relationship” between Zuma and controversial businessman Schabir Shaik.
”Instead of going through Squires’ judgement line by line, the Supreme Court merely parroted newspaper editorials. The five of them must clearly go. If they can do this in such a high-profile case, imagine what they can do to ordinary, poor people,” Business Day quoted Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi as saying.
”If five eminent judges can be misled by the media, how will a single high court judge not be influenced?”
On Sunday, Cosatu called for Zuma to be reinstated as the country’s deputy president, according to a report on South African Broadcasting Corporation television news.
Vavi said: ”We will never accept that Jacob Zuma would receive a fair trial because the president suspended him following what he believed was coming from Judge Squires.”
He said the Shaik judgement did irreparable damage to Zuma. Squires sentenced Schabir Shaik to 15 years in prison for corruption.
In a letter written to the Business Day this weekend, Squires pointed out the error and attributed the phrase to the prosecution.
”If you have never read the judgement delivered in that case, may I suggest that you do so. I can find no such mention of my having made any such comment,” he said.
”If you have already read the judgement, and in it this phrase ‘a generally corrupt relationship,’ occurs, I would be grateful if you would advise me of the page and line number in which the statement appears.”
Squires said it was not possible during the trial to make any finding on the nature of the relationship between the two men, since Zuma was not on trial. – Sapa