ANC president Jacob Zuma will not have a fair trial, because there is no judge in South Africa who does not have an opinion on his case, ANC treasurer general Mathews Phosa said on Thursday.
”Can you have a fair trial? No, because there is no one who does not have an opinion,” Phosa said during a public debate on law and politics, held at the University of Johannesburg.
Phosa said Zuma would pursue only legal means to end his woes with the National Prosecuting Authority.
”Zuma said he will stay in the court, he never wants to move out of the court of law … he is using all his legal armoury,” he said.
Professor David Unterhalter, a South African practitioner and law professor, disagreed with Phosa, saying Zuma would be tried fairly.
He based his arguments on the fact that judges based their verdicts on the evidence presented to them.
”Of course judges read newspapers, but when they go into a court room, they rely on evidence,” he said.
The notion that Zuma could not get a fair trial because his case was much talked about was not true, he argued.
During the debate, Phosa said the South African judiciary was not adequately transformed.
”There are issues of ideology … certain ideologies are not going to leave us … people brought up on apartheid cannot just change those ideologies,” he said.
Unterhalter disagreed with this, saying that there were many judges in South Africa who were aligned to the current legislative framework.
He conceded, however, that many judges tended to be middle class people, and there were instances where errors were made.
”Where judges stray, the public must come down on them, like a tonne of bricks.
”It disturbs me to hear that we inherited apartheid judges — who are they? Let’s have it out there, to ensure that we have the best kind of judiciary,” he said. – Sapa