Jacob Zuma lauds Arthur Fraser for saving him from ‘death itself’ in jail and averting ‘national stress’

Former president Jacob Zuma has approached the Constitutional Court, asking that he be made a second applicant, alongside first applicant the national commissioner of correctional services, in a bid to have the apex court overturn the decision that his release on medical parole was unlawful.  

In papers filed with the court, Zuma said there was the possibility he would have faced “death itself” while imprisoned in 2021 for contempt of court, making the unilateral decision by then prisons boss Arthur Fraser to grant him medical parole neither unreasonable nor irrational. 

Fraser had displayed “exemplary leadership” by granting his medical parole, he said. 

In November, the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) upheld a December 2021 ruling by the Pretoria High Court that Fraser’s granting of medical parole to Zuma was “irrational, unlawful and unconstitutional”.  

The SCA agreed with the lower court that Zuma should return to jail, but said it was up to the (new) national commissioner of correctional services to decide whether the former president’s time served on medical parole should be considered in his release. 

Zuma called this “erroneous in the extreme”, saying his full sentence had already been served via medical parole by 7 October 2022, so there was nothing for the new commissioner to consider. He asked that the apex court make a final decision on this. 

A key component of both the high court and the SCA rulings was that the Medical Parole Advisory Board, empowered by the Correctional Services Act to assess whether an inmate qualified for medical parole or not, had found that Zuma did not qualify. 

The courts also found that Fraser had no legal power to override the board’s decision, while slamming him for using the potential for a recurrence of the July 2021 unrest – which was sparked by Zuma’s imprisonment – as part of the justification for the former president’s release in September 2021, just more than two months after he had been sentenced to 15 months in jail for contempt of court. 

Since his release, the 80-year-old has been attending meetings, launched a collection of his speeches in book form at an hours-long event, and has been photographed at a restaurant opening where he danced with friends and family. There is no visible indication at least, that he has a serious illness, or indeed a terminal illness, that justified his release on medical parole. Zuma has publicly brushed off such assertions, saying those making such comments are not medical practitioners. 

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Zuma continued in his affidavit that the SCA had erred in finding that his age, status as former president, the riots sparked in July 2021 by his jailing, and the lack of facilities in correctional services to adequately attend to his “medical condition”, were irrelevant to an application for medical parole. 

The findings were “clearly erroneous at many levels”. 

“I was indeed 79 years of age and a former head of state. Those are facts that do not ground a basis for the granting of medical parole, but are correct [and] relevant information in describing who it is the commissioner was considering for medical parole. It was not the basis for granting medical parole that I was 79 years of age and a former head of state. Those factors alone would be neutral for they would be relevant facts to who I am. In any event, it is not correct that advanced age and frailty are ‘irrelevant’ to a person’s medical status.”

Arthur Frazer. (Photo by Gallo Images / Daily Sun / Lindile Mbontsi)