President Jacob Zuma. Picture: ELMOND JIYANE
President Jacob Zuma. Picture: ELMOND JIYANE

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LAWYERS for President Jacob Zuma dropped a bombshell in the Constitutional Court this week, when they conceded that he was bound to pay back some of the R246m spent unnecessarily on his Nkandla home, as recommended by the public protector.

In a single stroke, he nullified the elaborate efforts state officials and African National Congress (ANC) MPs had made to exonerate him from paying.

Whatever the outcome of the court case, the damage to the president’s credibility, and that of Parliament and the ANC, won’t be repaired easily.

In this week's Financial Mail

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This week’s court hearing was a spectacle, preceded by the astonishing last-minute offer last week to pay back the money. There have seldom been court hearings in which the key players so profoundly retreated from their original positions, or conceded so much.

On the upside, the status and the powers of the public protector as far as her Nkandla investigation was concerned, and their binding nature, have been roundly affirmed.

The president, who has done so much to undermine Public Protector Thuli Madonsela and her findings, has now had a change of heart, it appears. But, in the past two years, his offensive against Ms Madonsela did more damage to his own position and that of the ANC than to the office of the public protector.

The president’s capitulation was forced on him by compelling legal opinion, not by any sudden political wisdom or contrition. It should be regarded with scepticism.

Mr Zuma is guilty of wasting state resources on trying to defend the indefensible, so undermining the office of the presidency.

Mr Zuma’s lawyer Jeremy Gauntlett’s appeal to the court to not make a ruling that could be used by opposition parties to impeach the president was a telling comment.

He further conceded that the Nkandla issue had "traumatised the nation". Indeed. These comments are the nub of Mr Zuma’s climbdown, not any sudden remorse or realisation of the folly of his actions.

When it suited him to treat the public protector’s findings as binding, he did so — against former national police commissioner Bheki Cele in 2010. Then, he appointed an enquiry that brought about Mr Cele’s departure.

But, if the battle over paying back the Nkandla money has compromised the president and his office, even more disturbing are the shortcomings it has highlighted in the leadership of the National Assembly and the ANC’s parliamentary caucus.

Instead of holding the executive to account, the legislature proved throughout the scandal to be mere protectors of the president and his cronies.

The ignominious showing by the National Assembly’s legal counsel at the court hearing was just another part of the sham. Parliament’s presiding officers and the ANC caucus undermined the public protector and her findings and declined to hold the president to account. In the process, they made the chamber an undignified battleground. They dented Parliament’s standing and eroded public trust in the processes of democratic government.

For that, Speaker Baleka Mbete and the ANC should be held to account.

Let’s hope they are deeply embarrassed by Mr Zuma’s climbdown. They must now examine very carefully their own roles in the Nkandla mess, and reflect on how they could repair their dented reputations.

This is not a case that should have gone to the Constitutional Court. While it is always a pleasure to hear argument from SA’s finest legal minds, the case was an unedifying spectacle.

It was tragic too, in its own way. The energy, time and other resources that went into the battle over Mr Zuma’s house could have been better used to solve some of SA’s real problems.