By Moira Encina
Eagle News Service
The Supreme Court has set oral arguments for the petition seeking to have the Philippines’ withdrawal from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court declared as invalid.
Oral arguments on the petition for certiorari and mandamus filed by Senators Francis Pangilinan, Franklin Drilon, Paolo Benigno Aquino IV, Leila de Lima, Risa Hontiveros and Antonio Trillanes IV were slated on July 24, at 2 p.m., at the SC’s session hall.
The SC also ordered Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano, Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, permanent Philippine representative to the UN Teodoro Locsin Jr. and chief presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo, the respondents, to comment on the petition within a non-extendible period of 10 days upon receipt of notice.
In seeking for the withdrawal to be declared invalid, the opposition lawmakers argued that the executive “cannot unilaterally withdraw from a treaty or international agreement because such withdrawal is equivalent to a repeal of a law.”
Such a repeal, they said, “requires” the participation of Congress as allegedly cited in Article VII, Section 21 of the Constitution.
On March 14, President Rodrigo Duterte announced the country’s withdrawal from the ICC, citing the “baseless, unprecedented and outrageous attacks on my person as well as against my administration, engineered by the officials of the United Nations..”
He was apparently referring to ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, who began a “preliminary examination” of the communication filed by lawyer Jude Sabio against Duterte for the alleged human rights violations in the government’s conduct of the war on drugs.
UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein also said Duterte should undergo a psychiatric evaluation after he lashed out at UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings Agnes Callamard who he said had prejudged him.
According to Duterte, before the ICC can assume jurisdiction over a country, it must first establish that such state is “unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute for the crime of genocide; crimes against humanity; war crimes and crimes of aggression.”
“The actuations and statement” of Zeid and Callamard “readily show international bias and refusal of some sectors of the international community to support the Philippines’ legitimate efforts at self-determination, nation-building and independence from foreign influence and control,” he said.
