Former South Africa President Jacob Zuma Benefits from President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Prison Pardon Policy
The 81-year-old former president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, was taken back to prison on Friday but was released an hour later as part of a remission procedure to reduce jail overcrowding. He is apparently not obligated to serve out the remainder of his prison term.
To lessen prison overcrowding, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Friday that he will offer a special pardon to 10,000 non-violent prisoners.
The Democratic Alliance called President Cyril Ramaphosa’s policy of issuing pardons to nonviolent offenders in South Africa, which Jacob Zuma benefitted from, a disgrace to the nation’s criminal justice system.
The opposition declared that it would file a lawsuit to contest President Ramaphosa’s decision.
Since a high court last month invalidated the medical parole that has kept the former president out of prison since 2021, the former president had faced the danger of returning to prison in order to abide by a judgment that his release on account of poor health was illegal.
On Friday morning at the Estcourt Correctional Center in KwaZulu-Natal Province, Mr. Zuma showed himself to the authorities. He was then let go.
In July 2021, President Zuma, who held power from 2008 to 2018, started serving a 15-month prison term after being found guilty of contempt of court after refusing to testify at an investigation into high-level corruption during his nine years in office.
