Anna Majavu

Anna Majavu

ANC president Jacob Zuma's supporters within the tripartite alliance have come out against yesterday's Constitutional Court ruling against his bid to declare raids on his and his lawyers' premises unlawful.

"We expected this. The whole Hlophe matter, we have said, was actually preparing us for this," SA Communist Party general secretary Blade Nzimande said, referring to Judge John Hlophe's alleged attempts to interfere in the Zuma judgment.

"This case will go down in history as the first political trial, post-apartheid," said Nzimande.

ANC Youth League spokesman Zizi Kodwa said judges Japhta and Nkabinde should have recused themselves from the team that handed down the judgment.

Kodwa said there was a "causal link" between Zuma's applications to the Constitutional Court and a Judicial Service Commission inquiry into complaints against Hlophe, and Hlophe's counter-complaint against Constitutional Court chief and deputy chief judges Pius Langa and Dikgang Moseneke.

The ANC said "the manner in which this case has been handled has reinforced the perception that the ANC president was being persecuted rather than prosecuted".

"It has also fuelled doubts about his chances of receiving a fair hearing."

Political analyst Zwelethu Jolobe said: "None of us really knows what is in those 93000 documents. Both Zuma's defence and the NPA had probably prepared legal arguments for his trial next week. "