{"id":387245,"date":"2017-12-29T12:30:54","date_gmt":"2017-12-29T12:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=387245"},"modified":"2017-12-29T12:31:45","modified_gmt":"2017-12-29T12:31:45","slug":"south-african-court-delivers-zuma-impeachment-blow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=387245","title":{"rendered":"South African court delivers Zuma impeachment blow"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa’s top court has found that parliament failed to comply with its duties in holding President Jacob Zuma accountable over a public funding case.<\/p>\n

The ruling said parliament must now set out rules for impeachment proceedings, but it remains unclear whether this will lead to any impeachment.<\/p>\n

The court was hearing a case brought by opposition groups who wanted parliament to be compelled to begin impeachment.<\/p>\n

It relates to Mr Zuma’s use of state funds to upgrade his private home.<\/p>\n

Handing down the Constitutional Court ruling, Judge Chris Jafta said: “We conclude that the assembly did not hold the president to account.<\/p>\n

“The assembly must put in place a mechanism that could be used for the removal of the president from office.”<\/p>\n

But the court said it could not intervene on how parliament determined the mechanism and that it had no power to order an impeachment<\/p>\n

The court awarded costs against Mr Zuma and parliament.<\/p>\n

<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The court ruling was by majority. Dissenting Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng said the ruling was a clear case of “judicial overreach”.<\/p>\n

Some $15m (\u00a311.1m) in state money was spent upgrading Mr Zuma’s home.<\/p>\n

In March 2016, the court ruled he had ignored a watchdog’s findings and said he must pay some of the money back. The president has reimbursed $631,000, deemed by the Treasury to be “reasonable”.<\/p>\n

Parliament then debated the matter and he survived a no-confidence vote, but Friday’s court ruling said that the procedures it followed were insufficient.<\/p>\n

Mr Zuma has been weakened by a number of corruption allegations and by his recent replacement by Cyril Ramaphosa as head of the ruling ANC.<\/p>\n

Mr Zuma, 75, is scheduled to remain president until general elections in 2019.<\/p>\n

He has faced a number of corruption allegations, all of which he denies.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Earlier this month\u00a0Mr Zuma lost two court cases in one day, both linked to corruption allegations.<\/p>\n

Zuma’s legal woes:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  • 2005: Charged with corruption over\u00a0multi-billion dollar 1999 arms deal<\/strong>\u00a0– charges dropped shortly before he becomes president in 2009<\/li>\n
  • 2016: Court orders he should be charged with corruption over the deal – he has appealed<\/li>\n
  • 2005: Charged with\u00a0raping family friend – acquitted<\/strong>\u00a0in 2006<\/li>\n
  • 2016: Court rules he breached his oath of office by using government money to upgrade\u00a0private home in Nkandla<\/strong>\u00a0– he has repaid some of the money<\/li>\n
  • 2017: Public protector said he should appoint judge-led inquiry into allegations he\u00a0profiteered from relationship with wealthy Gupta family<\/strong>\u00a0– he denies allegations, as have the Guptas<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    –<\/p>\n

    Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    South Africa’s top court has found that parliament failed to comply with its duties in holding President Jacob Zuma accountable over a public funding case. The ruling said parliament must now set out rules for impeachment proceedings, but it remains unclear whether this will lead to any impeachment. The court was hearing a case brought […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":387250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-387245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=387245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/387250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=387245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=387245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=387245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}