Correctional Services Commissioner Makgothi Thobakgale will have a thousand voices whispering and shouting in his ear this week. Many of those voices will tell him to do the right thing and send former president Jacob Zuma, the serial dodger of his day in court, back to prison.

In November last year, the Supreme Court of Appeals ordered that Zuma must return to prison in Estcourt, KwaZulu-Natal, to finish his 15-month sentence for contempt of court after he was unlawfully released by his chum Arthur Fraser. He had served just two months. In July the Constitutional Court dismissed Zuma’s application to appeal the SCA judgment, meaning that Thobakgale must now decide...