ICC prosecutor asks court to reject Philippines’ appeal

International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan has asked the ICC Appeals Chamber to reject the Philippine government’s appeal of the decision to authorize the resumption of the probe on drug war killings in the Philippines.

In the 59-page document dated April 4, Khan said the government failed to show any error in the decision and failed to identify any error that materially affected the decision.

“The Prosecution respectfully requests the Appeals Chamber to reject the Appeal and confirm the Pre-Trial Chamber’s authorization of the resumption of the Prosecution’s investigation,” Khan said.

“Instead, the Chamber reasonably and correctly considered the materials submitted by the Philippines and correctly applied the law,” he added.

Khan said that the ICC had jurisdiction over the situation because the alleged crimes were committed from November 2011 to March 2019 while the country only withdrew from the ICC in March 2019.

Philippine officials have repeatedly said that the ICC had no jurisdiction in the Philippines after the country’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute, which established the ICC, in March 2019.

“The Philippines, therefore, was a State Party to the Statute during the temporal scope of the authorized investigation. The Philippines’ subsequent withdrawal from the Statute thus has no effect on the previously established jurisdiction of the Court,” Khan said.

He said that state cooperation was not a legal prerequisite for the exercise of the ICC’s jurisdiction.

“Although State cooperation is fundamental to the Court’s efficient conduct of its proceedings, it is not a jurisdictional precondition that must be met for the Court to exercise its jurisdiction,” Khan said.

Domestic processes

Khan said that the government raised arguments concerning domestic processes for the first time in its appeal.

“It has never previously articulated a formal mandatory progression from the PNP-IAS to review by the Department of Justice panel to case build-up by the NBI, nor in any event does it now cite any clear basis under the law of the Philippines requiring that this sequence is followed,” Khan said.

“Furthermore, the Philippines presents no authority to support its claim that domestic ‘procedural rules demand a lengthier investigation phase while in turn, the commencement of court proceedings following an investigation are usually immediately’,” he later added.

According to Khan, the chamber did not err in considering that the country’s investigation did not extend to high-ranking officials.

“In particular, by focusing on low-ranking individuals, it was not clear how the Philippines was investigating the question of the potential links between criminal incidents, which may be significant to the contextual element of crimes against humanity,” Khan said.

Khan said available information indicated that torture, inhuman acts, and other crimes had been committed in connection to the drug war.

“Nothing about these crimes committed in large part by law enforcement personnel entrusted with protecting citizens from violence, suggests that the potential cases before the Court are of marginal gravity,” Khan said.

“To the contrary, they are extremely serious, and appear to have been at the very least encouraged and condoned by high-level government officials, up to and including the former President,” he added.

The Philippines withdrew from the Rome Statute, which established the ICC, in March 2019, under the leadership of then-President Rodrigo Duterte.

In January, the ICC authorized the reopening of an inquiry into the drug war.

Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said he expected the ICC to reject the appeal.

“If their intention is to take over our legal system, we will not allow them to. So I will welcome them to the airport for their flight out,” Remulla said in an ambush interview.

Remulla has also denounced the ICC’s decision to reopen the inquiry before the United Nations Human Rights Council, saying that an unjustified external interference rarely serves human rights. —NB, GMA Integrated News