Scorpions: Zille, Zuma to meet

Johannesburg - Democratic Alliance president Helen Zille is to ask for a meeting with African National Congress president Jacob Zuma to discuss the future of the Scorpions, she said on Thursday.

Zille told the Platform for Public Deliberation at the University of the Witwatersrand: "I intend to put this challenge to him.

"I will write to Mr Zuma and request an urgent meeting to state unambiguously the disastrous consequences that disbanding the Scorpions will have for South Africa.

"I have been to discuss the future of the Scorpions with President Thabo Mbeki. He made it clear to me that he wanted them to be retained in the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and that the recommendations of the Khampepe Commission should be implemented."

Mbeki clearly had been overruled by his ANC bosses.

Zille said: "Now, we have to face the new deployer (Zuma) full square.

"As Business Day said today: 'There is only one person who can save South Africa from this shameful episode and that is Jacob Zuma. Zuma has to be able to separate the legal action against him from his duties as national leader'."

The opposition leader said another possible route in retaining the Scorpions as part of the NPA would be a legal one.

She said there were at least two legal arguments which could test the constitutionality of disbanding the unit.

DA has means for challenge

"Of course, the DA will not commit to any such court action until we have a firm legal basis to do so. We are consulting with constitutional lawyers in this regard.

"If there is a viable legal route to challenge the dissolution of the Scorpions in the Constitutional Court , we have the means and the will to do so," said Zille.

She called on other opposition parties, the media, civil society and concerned South Africans to fight for the Scorpions and "against everything its dissolution represents".

"I would argue that this issue cuts to the very heart of the constitutional crisis brewing in South Africa."

The decision to dissolve the unit was taken unilaterally by the ruling party, she said.

News24.com