#StateCaptureReport: Just leave Des out of it
Counsel for Minister Des van Rooyen told the court he has no objection to the release of the report - as long as parts relating to him are removed.
|||Pretoria - Minister of Co-Operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Des van Rooyen, wants to intervene in the court proceedings launched by President Jacob Zuma to gag the publication of the State capture report, but he only wants the court to block out those portions which relates to him.
His advocate, Stephan du Toit, on Tuesday afternoon told a full bench - three judges - that Van Rooyen said the report can be released, but “ just take out the portions about me.”
Van Rooyen feels that he was not given sufficient time to give his input into the report, regarding the portions which may relate to him.
Du Toit said his client initially withdraw his application to interdict the public protector from publishing the report. This was because the public protector assured him he was not implicated But he subsequently became worried following recent media reports that he had visited the Gupta family on numerous occasions and he suspect that his name did feature in the reports.
The court must now decide whether Van Rooyen can re-launch his application and whether the various political parties may intervene in the main, Zuma application. All in all there are 11 different applications before court, or “side shows” as referred to by some counsel.These include the applications by the various political parties to enter the fray, the Van Rooyen application and a counter application by the EFF that the public protector release the report.
Counsel for the EFF said the entire report had to be published, not only portions of it.
The public had the right to know what was in the entire report, and not only portions of it, the court was told.
Van Rooyens' fears that he will get negative press reports if the report is published and it implicated him, but this cannot trump the public's right to know what is in the report, it was argued on behalf of the DA.
While van Rooyen argued that his application is extremely urgent, the other parties refuted this and said nothing changed since his first application which he had withdrew. “There is nothing to say in the Sunday Times report that his alleged frequent visits to the Guptas is contained in the report,” Mphofu said.
Van Rooyen said he feared that the counter application by the EFF - that the report must immediately be published - is granted, thus is his application is urgent. But Mpofu said its an abuse of the court process. “You cannot withdraw and again appear...The red flag is the Sunday Times article...this can never make his application urgent,” Mpofu said.
Pretoria News