“Karyn Maughan Challenging Prosecution A ‘Stillborn Attempt’ To ‘Prevent Inevitable'”
Former President Jacob Zuma insists that his private prosecution of News24 journalist Karyn Maughan has no ulterior motives and that he has the legal right to do so.
The Pietermaritzburg High Court will hear the private prosecution case between Zuma, Advocate Barry Downer, and Maughan on October 10.
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Zuma filed a criminal complaint against Downer at the Pietermaritzburg police station in October last year for allegedly leaking his confidential medical records to Maughan.
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) granted Zuma a nolle prosequi certificate in June this year after declining to prosecute Downer for allegedly leaking the former president’s medical records.
The NPA based its decision on a lack of evidence.
Zuma served only two months of a 15-month prison sentence imposed by the Constitutional Court for failing to appear before the State Capture Commission of Inquiry.
Former prison director Arthur Fraser released him on medical parole in September of last year. This decision was later ruled to be illegal, but Zuma’s legal team appealed.
Zuma’s prison sentence would have officially ended on Friday, October 7, if he had served the full 15 months.
His sentence would have ended on 6 October 2022 if he had not been granted medical parole.
Maughan has now filed an urgent application to stop her prosecution, accusing Zuma of having “ulterior” motives. “Mr Zuma’s answer, replete as it is with vitriolic attacks against me and my reporting, confirms that he is intent on discrediting and silencing me as a journalist. It is clear that his institution of a private prosecution against me is instituted for that ulterior and impermissible purpose,” she said.
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Maughan also denied Zuma’s claims that her reporting against him was biased in an answering affidavit filed in the KwaZulu-Natal Division of the High Court in Pietermaritzburg.
“My reporting on Mr Zuma’s trial is informed by my independent and professional assessment of the facts and a concern to report on legal developments in the public interest.
“The public has a right to know how Mr Zuma’s criminal prosecution unfolds and, where there are delays in the trial, the reason for those delays. This would be true of any criminal trial, but finds particular application in respect of criminal proceedings that have been the subject of a multitude of legal delays amounting to some 229 months (19 years),” Maughan said.
Zuma denied in papers opposing Maughan’s application that he was targeting the journalist and that he had the authority to prosecute Maughan.
Zuma described Maughan’s application as “a stillborn attempt to prevent the inevitable.” “In doing so‚ I do not seek to stop her from reporting about my trial. I do not even wish for balanced reporting from her because she is incapable of that. I wish to prevent her from committing a crime with the NPA officials to my personal prejudice and to the prejudice of the prosecution as well as the administration of justice as a whole,” Zuma said.
Zuma claimed that Maughan had an ulterior motive and was assisting “the NPA’s media campaign” to portray him as a criminal.
