Former South African president, Jacob Zuma, will complete his sentence after the nation’s top court declared that the early medical parole was “unlawful.”
Zuma received a 15-month jail sentence last year after he ignored a court order to appear at a government probe into massive corruption that occurred during his almost 10-year tenure in power, which ended in 2018 and was replaced by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Zuma was granted medical parole in September 2021 after completing a fraction of his term. However, the supreme court overturned the parole judgment in December and mandated that he be sent back to prison.
However, the supreme court overturned the parole judgment in December and mandated that he be sent back to prison.
“In other words, Mr. Zuma, in law, has not finished serving his sentence. He must return to the Escourt Correctional centre to do so,” the Supreme Court of Appeal judgment read.
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The court rejected the department’s assertion that Zuma’s sentence had ended while the appeal was still pending.
It also determined that the previous national commissioner of correctional services’ decision to give Zuma medical parole against the opinion of a specialized body, the Medical Parole Advisory Board, was illegal.
“On any conceivable basis, the commissioner’s decision was unlawful and unconstitutional. The high court was correct to set it aside,” the judgment said.
