South Africa’s highest court found former President Jacob Zuma guilty of contempt of court and sentenced him to 15 months in prison on Tuesday.

The Constitutional Court of South Africa ordered that Zuma present himself at a police station in his home town of Nkandla or Johannesburg within five days.

In the judgment, Justice Sisi Khampepe ruled: “There can be no doubt that Mr Zuma is in contempt of court.”

“No person is above the law … whatever his rank or condition,” she said, continuing: “An act of defiance in respect of a direct judicial order has the potential to precipitate a constitutional crisis.

“If with impunity litigants are allowed to decide which orders they wish to obey, and which they wish to ignore, then our Constitution is not worth the paper on which it is written.”

The Constitutional Court ruled in January that Zuma had to respond to questions from a judicial commission headed by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo. But the 79-year-old former intelligence operative accused the court and Zondo of bias, walked out of one scheduled panel hearing in November and boycotted another in February. The panel responded by filing contempt charges against him.

“The Constitutional Court can do nothing but conclude that Mr. Zuma is guilty of the crime of contempt of court,” Justice Sisi Khampepe said. “Mr. Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma is sentenced to undergo 15 months imprisonment.”

Zuma served as South Africa’s President from 2009 to 2018.