The Sunday News
Former Constitutional Court justice Zak Yacoob would have found President Jacob Zuma guilty in 2006 of raping a family friend.
Yacoob made the remark yesterday while speaking at the Arts of Human Rights workshop, hosted by the University of the Witwatersrand’s Institute for Social and Economic Research.
Yacoob was in discussion with institute researcher Lisa Vetten, who presented a paper on the role of storytelling in the rape trial, titled Daughters of a Revolution: Spectacle and Narrative in S v Zuma.
Yacoob said he had a “serious problem” with Johannesburg High Court judge Willem van der Merwe’s verdict that Zuma was not guilty of raping the 31-year-old, identified only as “Khwezi”.
“I have a serious difference of opinion . . . I had a serious problem with the Zuma judgment . . . If it were me, I would have set aside the judgment,” Yacoob said.
He said he would have put less emphasis on Khwezi’s sexual history and on her failure to report the alleged rape immediately.
Judges, Yacoob said, were human and their decisions were to an extent subjective.
“Trials and judges do not decide the truth . . . judges never know the truth,” said Yacoob.
He agreed with Vetten that the Zuma trial, like others, was not about unearthing the truth but was a “storytelling contest” between two opposing sides, with the verdict based on which side told the better story.
He said that sometimes truth and justice were not on the same side.
Van der Merwe decided at the time that the state had not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Zuma intended to commit rape.
In his judgment he raised questions about the credibility of the complainant, Khwezi.
“It would be foolish for any man with a police guard at hand, and his daughter not far away, to surprise a sleeping woman and to start raping her without knowing whether she would shout the roof off,” he said. – Online.
