De Lima asks SC permission to attend debate over challenge to ICC withdrawal

Detained Senator Leila de Lima has asked the Supreme Court (SC) to allow her to personally appear and represent herself during the oral arguments for the legal challenge to the Philippines' withdrawal from the establishing treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

De Lima, jailed over drug charges, is one of the six minority senators who petitioned the SC to declare "invalid or ineffective" Manila's pullout from the Rome Statute without the concurrence of at least two-thirds of the Senate, which ratified it in 2011.

The lawmakers' pleading was consolidated with that of the Philippine Coalition for the International Criminal Court, which also questioned the country's formal backing out from the Hague-based tribunal.

From July 24, the oral arguments for the consolidated cases has been set for August 7, 2 p.m, at the SC Session Hall.

President Rodrigo Duterte announced the country's withdrawal of its membership from the ICC in March, after it announced it was examining whether or not it can investigate him over his administration's bloody crackdown on illegal drugs.

In a manifestation with motion filed on Monday, De Lima said she could argue her case before the SC because the prohibition on members of Congress to appear before any court applies only when the lawmaker is doing so as counsel in a particular case.

The Rules of Court also allows a litigant to personally prosecute his or her case, she stated in her pleading.

"Likewise, this Honorable Court is respectfully asked to take judicial notice of its practice of permitting members of Congress to appear before it and argue their cases. The situation of Senator De Lima is not different from them," her motion said.

A staunch Duterte critic, De Lima has been detained for over a year in connection with her alleged involvement in the illegal drug trade in the New Bilibid Prison.

She has not yet been arraigned, every scheduled date for the reading of the charges pushed back pending resolution of various motions.

She has been allowed a one-day medical furlough, but prohibited from attending her son's law school graduation by a Muntinlupa regional trial court. — RSJ, GMA News