Former President Rodrigo Duterte’s authorized crew has taken a step to formally problem the jurisdiction of the Worldwide Prison Courtroom over his arrest for alleged crimes towards humanity. — File photograph
After failing to get two of the Worldwide Prison Courtroom (ICC) judges to excuse themselves from the case of former President Rodrigo Duterte, his protection crew now desires them disqualified for supposedly having already selected the problem of jurisdiction once they allowed the prosecution in 2021 to open a probe into the drug warfare.
In an 11-page request to the three-member Presidency of the Worldwide Courtroom on Might 12, Duterte’s lead counsel Nicholas Kaufman made a request to disqualify Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) 1 Judges Rene Adelaide Alapini-Gansou and Maria del Socorro Flores Liera, each members of the earlier chamber that allowed the ICC prosecutor in 2021 to provoke the investigation into the previous president’s antidrug marketing campaign and to renew the stalled probe in 2023.
Kaufman mentioned the disqualification of Gansou and Liera would “make sure the autonomy and irreproachability of the judges” as each had “prior involvement in probably the most substantive authorized query” within the homicide case towards Duterte.
“The recourse sought will, concurrently, protect Mr. Duterte’s proper to objectively neutral adjudication,” he added.
On Might 6, the PTC 1 dismissed the Duterte camp’s “invitation” for Gansou and Liera to excuse themselves from adjudicating on the problem of the ICC’s jurisdiction over the case.
It cited earlier selections of the Presidency that “no preemptive request could also be made by the events {that a} decide request his or her excusal” and that the motion “lacks procedural propriety.”
Far-reaching results
Kaufman pressured that the matter of jurisdiction, which he deemed some of the contentious points within the case, and the chamber’s determination on it might have “far-reaching penalties.”
“This matter shouldn’t be determined within the case by judges who’ve formulated a agency opinion on the query of sub judice previous to listening to protection submissions,” he mentioned within the petition for his or her disqualification.
Kaufman and his crew additionally criticized the prosecution led by Karim Khan for calling as “nonsensical” their earlier “invitation” for Gansou and Liera to inhibit themselves from deciding on the protection’s problem on jurisdiction filed on Might 1.
“It’s a quirk of the Rome Statute which allows jurisdiction to be litigated twice earlier than the identical [PTC].” Kaufman mentioned. “The prosecution, in addition to the judiciary, is equally charged with guaranteeing a good adversarial course of and, frankly, ought to have agreed with the substance of the protection invitation.”
In accordance with him, no new info will come up that might presumably sway the sooner opinion of the 2 judges on whether or not ICC retained jurisdiction over the crimes towards humanity dedicated within the Philippines after the federal government, then below Duterte, successfully withdrew in 2019 from the Rome Statute, which created the courtroom. INQ
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