The Johannesburg High Court is expected to decide in May on the legality of former South African president Jacob Zuma’s private prosecution of his successor Cyril Ramaphosa.The court on Thursday set May 17-18 as the dates when it would hear Zuma’s case in which he is accusing his successor of being “an accessory after the fact” in connection with the public leaking of his medical records concerning his premature discharge on medical parole from a 15-month prison sentence after serving only two months in 2021.   

Zuma said Ramaphosa’s failure to act on the alleged breach allegedly compromised the National Prosecution Authority, and by extension, the criminal justice system as a whole.

A full bench of the high court on Monday granted Ramaphosa an interim relief to stop Zuma from taking any further steps in his private prosecution of the president, prompting the Jacob Zuma Foundation to exclaim that the law only favoured the country’s elite.

This meant that Ramaphosa would not have to appear in the criminal court on Thursday as per summons issued by Zuma on 15 December, according to the high court.

The interdict would remain in place pending the determination of Ramaphosa’s main application in May, the court ruled.