The state capture commission has asked that former president Jacob Zuma be sentenced to two years in prison for contempt of court.

This followed Zuma’s failure to turn up at the commission last week despite a summons and an order from the highest court to do so. 

In an urgent application to the Constitutional Court on Monday, the commission’s secretary Itumeleng Mosala said Zuma had committed a number of contemptuous acts - failing to turn up when he was summoned to, failing to file affidavits as per the Constitutional Court’s order and “scurrilous statements” made against the Constitutional Court and the whole of the judiciary.

Mosala said this was “no ordinary case of contempt”. Referring to public statements made by Zuma after the Constitutional Court’s judgment in which Zuma had lashed out at judges, saying some betrayed their oaths of office for political expediency, Mosala said Zuma’s conduct was “calculated to undermine the integrity of this court and the judiciary in general”.

Mosala said the sentence also needed to reflect the expectation of society that a person in a leadership position “with immense influence” like Zuma “should comply with the law rather than displaying contempt of the law”. 

This is a developing story.

TimesLIVE