Judgement on Zuma legal fees expected today
PRETORIA – Former President Jacob Zuma will hear on Thursday whether the state will pick up the tab for his hefty legal fees.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) approached the High Court in Pretoria in November to review and set aside the office of the state attorney’s decision to bankroll Zuma’s litigation.
It’s estimated that the former president has spent between R15 million to R30 million of taxpayers’ money on his legal fees.
Opposition parties, the DA and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), have sought a declaratory order that the state attorney’s decision to pay for Zuma’s legal fees was unlawful.
If successful, Zuma would be responsible to pay back litigation costs going back more than a decade and would include his costly spy tapes challenge.
The former president claims that this case was raised in order to hurt him politically, adding that there is no evidence he was trying to prevent having his day in court.
The EFF argued that the decision to fund Zuma’s fees was wrong.