President Jacob Zuma.
"I will reserve the judgment as you will appreciate," judge Rami Mathopo said.
The Democratic Alliance on Wednesday brought its court application to a full bench of the North Gauteng High Court in an attempt to force the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to comply with a court order, which states that it must hand over the reduced court record that eventually led to the dropping of fraud and corruption charges against President Jacob Zuma.
The record is said to include the spy tapes, which are recordings of intercepted phone conversations between former NPA head Bulelani Ngcuka and then boss of the now extinguished Scorpions, Leonard McCarthy.
The tapes formed the basis of then acting NPA head Mokatedi Mpshe's decision to drop corruption and fraud charges against Zuma in 2009.
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Contempt of court
The case was due to be heard in April, but was postponed for a decision on whether or not a full Bench should hear the matter.
Zuma and the NPA will oppose the application on the basis that the tapes formed part of his confidential representations to court during his trial.
But the Supreme Court of Appeal ruling, which the DA wanted the court to enforce this week, excludes Zuma's private representations from the public record to be handed over.
In March 2012, the Supreme Court of Appeal gave the NPA 14 days to produce the documents, which led to Mpshe's decision to drop charges. Instead of producing the transcripts in April last year, the NPA handed them to Zuma's lawyer Michael Hulley.
The DA then argued the NPA should be found in contempt of court because it had failed to comply with the court order.
Further complications
The matter was further complicated as neither the president nor his legal representatives ever handed over copies of the tapes to the NPA in the first place.
When dropping the charges, Mpshe said Hulley had only allowed prosecutors Sibongile Mzinyathi and Willie Hofmeyr to listen to recordings of the tapes.
After Zuma's representations, the NPA independently obtained recordings from the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) of the same telephone intercepts. The president's legal team argues that the tapes and their transcripts formed part of representations made to the NPA by Zuma and are as such confidential.
But, the DA contends, the recordings were handed over to the NPA by the National Intelligence Agency and cannot be seen as privileged information.
Zuma's lawyer Kemp J Kemp contended this had no bearing on the matter.