Duterte ‘fit’ to participate in ICC pre-trial proceedings –medical experts

A panel of experts who checked on the medical condition of former president Rodrigo Duterte has found that the former Philippine leader is able to fully engage and participate in the International Criminal Court (ICC) pre-trial proceedings, including the hearing on confirmation of charges against him.  

Citing the assessment of the medical experts, Deputy Prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang said that it was concluded that while Duterte is frail and elderly, he “nevertheless possesses the necessary capacities to meaningfully exercise his procedural and fair trial rights.” 

In particular, Niang said that each panel member independently found that Duterte has the ability to understand the charges and the evidence; understand the conduct, purpose and possible consequences of the pre-trial proceedings; and instruct his counsel for the preparation and conduct of his defence.

“These findings are clear and unanimous, and should be relied upon by the Chamber as authoritative, to determine that Mr. Duterte is fit to stand trial,” the ICC Deputy Prosecutor said in a nine-page observation. 

Niang also noted that the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber 1 should accept the unanimous view of the experts given that they each employed specific tests to assess whether Duterte was underperforming while being assessed “and they each found him to be unreliable.”

“In the Prosecution’s view, it strongly appears that Mr. Duterte is feigning cognitive impairments in an attempt to avoid a trial on the merits,” he added. 

Calling the medical experts’ findings reliable, Niang thus requested the chamber to conclude that Duterte “is capable of meaningfully exercising his procedural and fair trial rights, and that he is fit to participate in the hearing on the confirmation of charges.”

Niang also urged the chamber to schedule the resumption of the proceedings on the confirmation of charges with the modalities it considers appropriate to facilitate Duterte’s presence in court.

Evidentiary hearing

Duterte’s lead counsel Nicholas Kaufman, on the other hand, acknowledged that the medical experts considered that Duterte is competent for the purpose of the pre-trial proceedings.

However, Kaufman argued that the means by which each member of the experts panel reached conclusions “stridently conflict with those of the others.” 

He also pointed out that while experts agreed that Duterte’s poor performance on the tests designed to assess cognitive faculties resulted from underperformance, “nowhere is it stated, however, that such underperformance is deliberate.”

Kaufman also said that the experts failed to consider Duterte’s medical conditions and integrate them into their unified conclusions on fitness.

“Such internal inconsistencies undermine the overall weight of the general joint conclusion on fitness. Before rendering a decision on the matter, the Pre-Trial Chamber must seek further clarification,” Duterte’s lawyer said. 

“The Panel’s joint report thus cannot be dispositive nor is there any articulated reason for it to be dispositive. The Pre-Trial Chamber merely rejected the Defence expertise by deeming it necessary to obtain further information,” he added. 

Duterte’s defense thus sought for an evidentiary hearing for parties to clarify the conclusions of the experts, the reasons for such conclusions, the methodology adopted during the interviews, and the means where instructions were communicated to them.

“Such an evidentiary hearing is considered standard practice in many jurisdictions throughout the world as well as before the international criminal tribunals,” Kaufman said.

Duterte is currently detained at The Hague in the Netherlands on charges of crimes against humanity following his arrest through a warrant also issued by the ICC.

On November 28, the ICC Appeals Chamber denied the appeal of former President Rodrigo Duterte on the rejection of his request for interim release. —AOL, GMA Integrated News