Lawyers for African National Congress president Jacob Zuma on Monday filed papers with the Pietermaritzburg High Court arguing that his corruption trial should be dropped.

Zuma's lawyer Michael Hulley said the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) had been sent copies of the document and that the matter was expected to be heard in the Pietermaritzburg court on 4 and 5 August. This would be ahead of the start of his corruption trial on 14 August.

Zuma was seeking an order declaring that the NPA's decision to prosecute him, first in June 2005, and then in December last year, was invalid and should be set aside.

"Should the present application not result in a positive outcome in respect of a re-appraisal of the decision to prosecute, a permanent stay application will be brought in which these issues and the impact on my fair trial rights will be addressed in detail," reads the document.

Income Tax Act 'violations'

Should this become necessary, Zuma's lawyers would "vigorously" attack that section of his indictment relating to alleged violations of the Income Tax Act.

"These charges typify the improper 'convict Zuma at all costs leitmotif' which permeates the NPA's prosecution of myself."

Zuma was contending that the decision to prosecute him, announced shortly after the ANC's national conference in Polokwane in December 2007, constituted a review of and reversal of a 2003 decision not to do so.

He said he had not been given the opportunity to make representations as to whether the 2003 decision should be reviewed.

"This is a clear and, I submit, conscious and deliberate negation of the constitutional prerequisites of calling for representations, considering these if provided and then making an informed decision whether to reverse the earlier decision and institute a prosecution or not."

In August 2003, then National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka said while there was a prima facie case of corruption against Zuma, the NPA had decided not to prosecute him because it was not sure that its prospects of success were strong enough to win the case.

Alternatively, Zuma would argue that the failure to invite representations from him prior to December 2007 was unlawful, unreasonable or procedurally unfair within the parameters of Section 33 of the Constitution.

Zuma said that the decision to recharge him in 2007 would have been far more credible and seemed more impartial if it had been taken after hearing representations and after his election as ANC president in Polokwane.

Sapa