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The President has this afternoon filed a court application to frustrate and delay the legal process to review his disastrous cabinet reshuffle and the firing of Pravin Gordhan and Mcebisi Jonas.

President Zuma has served upon the DA a notice of application for leave to appeal against the order of Judge Vally, handed down last Thursday, which requires him to deliver the record of decision by the close of business tomorrow.

The President is clearly hell-bent on keeping these reasons from the people of South Africa and is using every possible court process to do so.

President Zuma has also filed a notice in terms of Rule 35(12) to bizarrely request that the DA should provide him with the so-called “intelligence report” upon which he allegedly relied in recalling Pravin Gordhan from his investor roadshow in London, and ultimately firing him from cabinet four days later.

The “intelligence report” has been widely communicated on and addressed by senior members of President Zuma’s own government and party, including the Deputy President and the Speaker of the National Assembly, and it is, therefore, dumbfounding that he would require the DA to supply him with this report. We are led to conclude that President Zuma is using this medium as another delaying tactic in avoiding accountability for his disastrous reshuffle that has severe consequences for all people of South Africa.

We have all seen this movie before. These tactics are substantially the very same tactics used by Jacob Zuma in the Spy Tapes matter to delay as long as possible the course of justice and to prevent 783 charges being reinstated against him.

The DA views these moves by Jacob Zuma as desperate attempts to frustrate the course of justice, wherein he must be held to account for the effects of his executive actions that we contend were irrational and should be set aside.

The DA does not believe that President Zuma’s application for leave to appeal has a likelihood of success, and we, therefore, will resist the President’s application with vigour.

Issued by DA