: A South African Court’s Ruling Against Jacob Zuma Offers Hope for the Rule of Law #WorldNEWS In any country, the central political question is “what is the role of the law?” Does it exist

A South African Court’s Ruling Against Jacob Zuma Offers Hope for the Rule of Law #WorldNEWS
In any country, the central political question is “what is the role of the law?” Does it exist to protect every individual from abuses of power? Or does it exist mainly to protect those who have power?
That’s a test that South Africans understand well. A landmark court decision announced this week gives many South Africans reassurance that their governing institutions work. But this story isnt over.
What happened
On June 29, the country’s constitutional court ruled that former president Jacob Zuma must serve 15 months in prison for failing to appear before a commission investigating corruption during Zuma’s presidency (2009-2018). Zuma not only rejected the commission’s authority and refused to answer charges or mount a defense, he also wrote a 21-page letter to the chief justice of the constitutional court that charged that the corruption commission was “established to destroy the work that I did when I served my country as President. ”
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He then essentially dared the court to jail him: “…my imprisonment would become the soil on which future struggles for a judiciary that sees itself as a servant of the Constitution and the people rather than an instrument for advancing dominant political narratives. ” That sounded to many ears like a threat that any judgment against him would trigger social unrest and perhaps violence in the country.
The court then ordered Zuma to surrender to authorities by July 4. The former president has launched an appeal to the same court and refuses to surrender to authorities. He argues that sending a 79-year-old man to prison during a pandemic amounts to a death sentence. Supporters have surrounded his home and vow to protect him. Authorities are bracing for protests in other parts of the country in coming days. Warnings of a constitutional and political crisis from core Zuma supporters within the so-called Radical Economic Transformation faction of the governing party, the African National Congress (ANC), have bolstered the former president’s defiance.
But the justices didn’t simply find Zuma in contempt of court; they accused him of trying to “destroy the rule of law. ” He’s unlikely to avoid jail.
The case(s) against Zuma
Jacob Zuma was once a hero of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Like Nelson Mandela, Zuma was imprisoned for years on Robben Island, near Cape Town. Two years after his release in 1973, he went into exile, living in a number of African countries. But he continued his work for the ANC, then an underground apartheid resistance organization. Once the ANC became legalized in 1990, Zuma returned to South Africa and his native region of KwaZulu Natal to help establish a post-apartheid peace there.