PHLawyers of former president Rodrigo Duterte have formally challenged the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) over alleged crimes against humanity committed in relation to his administration’s bloody campaign against îllégâl drugs.
In a 38-page filing dated May 1, defense lawyers Nicholas Kaufman and Dov Jacobs said the “preconditions for the exercise of jurisdiction” were not met at the time when the Pre-Trial Chamber authorized an investigation on Sept. 15, 2021.
“The Republic of the Philippines was no longer a State Party to the Rome Statute at that critical point in time,” the defense challenge read.The ICC prosecutor earlier maintained that it was authorized to investigate the alleged crimes committed in the Philippines when it was a state party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC.
“That the Philippines was not a State Party when the investigation was opened (on 15 September 2021) is immaterial and does not the deprive the Court of jurisdiction over crimes allegedly committed during the temporal scope of the investigation,” it told the ICC Appeals Chamber on April 4, 2023.
In 2018, former ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda initiated a preliminary examination of the situation in the Philippines. It prompted the Duterte administration to withdraw from the Rome Statute.
“Although the withdrawal of the Philippines from the Rome Statute of the ICC took effect on 17 March 2019, as the Court has previously found in the context of the Burundi situation, the Court retains jurisdiction over crimes that are alleged to have occurred on the territory of that State during the period when it was a State Party to the Rome Statute. Moreover, these crimes are not subject to any statute of limitation,” Bensouda said 2021.
But Duterte’s lawyers, in their latest filing, claimed that all procedural steps taken in the case of Duterte “lack legal foundation and should be nullified forthwith.”
“The Defence requests the Pre-Trial Chamber find that there is no legal basis for the continuation of the proceedings against Mr Rodrigo Roa Duterte and to order his immediate and unconditional release,” they asked the Pre-Trial Chamber I judges.
Duterte is currently detained at the ICC Detention Centre in Scheveningen, The Hague following his arrest in March.