Former president Jacob Zuma's R29 million repayment issue regarding his legal fees has now escalated to the Constitutional Court.
The Democratic Alliance has filed papers in the Constitutional Court opposing former president Jacob Zuma’s latest attempt to avoid repaying the nearly R29million he owes the State for his personal legal costs.
Zuma is seeking leave to appeal after both the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria and the Supreme Court of Appeal refused him leave. According to the DA, his application has no reasonable prospects of success and raises no genuine constitutional issue.
In 2018, a unanimous Full Bench (three judges) of the high court found that Zuma was liable to repay the amounts the State had paid on his behalf towards his personal legal costs in his criminal prosecution and related litigation.
That judgment was upheld by the SCA. The DA said Zuma is now trying to reopen a question that the courts have already settled. The only issue that remained was for the State Attorney to quantify the amount owed and to then recover the money. After a considerable delay, the State Attorney produced an accounting of the amounts paid, totaling R28,960,774. The high court then ordered Zuma to repay this amount, with interest.
