The Constitutional Court has rescued SA from a constitutional crisis of Shakespearean proportions, writes our award-winning columnist Bhekisisa Mncube

Mr President, His Excellency Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa, this is the time to be merry. Although coming from behind, the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) has secured all points and rescued SA from a constitutional crisis of Shakespearean proportions in the matter of Zuma vs The People.

The ConCourt has finally put an end to uBaba’s famed legal dance moves. uBaba is now finally on a judicial leash, off the stage, to be heard from no more. He is to serve time before his proverbial day in court. His scurrilous statements against the judiciary were finally his undoing before the apex court.

We would have been on the edge of the precipice if the judgment had favoured Zuma. Our constitutional project would have suffered irremediable harm. Instead, we, the people, have triumphed against rampant impunity as promoted by uBaba, one Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, since his troubles with the law began over a decade ago. He has launched sustained and spirited iniquitous attacks on the judiciary, creating a false narrative that any legal move against him is politically motivated. Yet he offers not one shred of evidence, instead presenting red herrings.

The ConCourt has now ruled that uBaba’s actions constituted an egregious affront to judicial integrity, perhaps not seen since the days of the apartheid regime. uBaba’s rampant and unrestrained attempts, often with mala fide to malign the good name of our judiciary, end here and now.

In writing about this matter earlier this year, I said the sine qua non of constitutionalism is that everyone is equal before the law, including uBaba, Ace Magashule and their cronies.

Thus we must celebrate that our apex court has put us back on the cherished constitutional pedestal. The constitutional injunction that we are all equal before the law would indeed sound hollow if Zuma remained free to insult the judiciary, defy its rulings and incite the masses without any judicial sanction.

In the words of acting Deputy Chief Justice Sisi Khampepe, uBaba launched a series of direct assaults and calculated and insidious efforts to corrode the ConCourt’s legitimacy and authority and, by implication, the entire judiciary.

In other words, by his actions, not just by omission, he threatened the whole constitutional project stitched together by our forebears to end the apartheid nightmare.

In plain English, Zuma’s action posed a “grave threat to the administration of justice and the rule of law”. Thus uBaba represents by act and omission the delinquent elder who pisses inside the tent during a family meeting. He had to be stopped by all means legally permissible for the sake of posterity.

It is an untenable constitutional situation to have one law for the political minnows and another for the aristocrats of the revolution.

Thus the ConCourt decision on uBaba’s contempt case sends a strong message to all RET forces that they will, in the end, run out of the proverbial road. Any decision short of a custodial non suspended sentence for uBaba would have had a chilling effect on the rule of law without which chaos reigns.

Justice Khampepe is now the quintessential commander-in-chief of judicial matters. She personifies the legal injunction that requires judicial officers to dispense justice without fear, favour or prejudice. By her actions, Justice Khampepe and her colleagues have reaffirmed the supremacy of the Constitution over self-help, which often leads to anarchy. If you insist, Justice Khampepe is the heir apparent of the dreams and aspirations of the people of South Africa as enshrined in the Constitution.

One of the least celebrated legal principles is that any judicial sanction is and must always be tempered with mercy. In the case of uBaba, it is clear that his decision to not favour the ConCourt with an affidavit while casting aspersion on the judges in public platforms left no room for mercy. uBaba made his bed; now he has to lie in it. There’s no wiggle room to cry foul.

Apart from officially becoming a felon, uBaba now holds a record for being the only citizen to be sent directly to jail by the ConCourt. For good measure, he was saddled with a punitive cost order.

Mr President, not to boast, but I saw uBaba’s demise coming. As I wrote in my February letter, if Zuma is so disinclined (not willing to hand himself over to authorities), the South African Police Service must “do the honours”, and haul uBaba screaming and kicking to jail for contempt of court. The ConCourt concurred with me on Tuesday. Till next week, my man. “Send me.”

This Letter to Mahlamba Ndlopfu is written by Bhekisisa Mncube, a former senior Witness political journalist, the 2020 regional winner in the Opinion category of the Vodacom Journalist of the Year Award, and author of The Love Diary of a Zulu Boy, a memoir.

This opinion piece was first published in the Witness/News24.