Du30 now wants ICC judges DQ’d
After failing to get two of the International Criminal Court (ICC) judges to excuse themselves from the case of former President Rodrigo Duterte, his defense team now wants them disqualified for supposedly having already decided on the issue of jurisdiction when they allowed the prosecution in 2021 to open a probe into the drug war.
In an 11-page request to the three-member Presidency of the International Court on May 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, both members of the previous chamber that allowed the ICC prosecutor in 2021 to initiate the investigation into the former president’s antidrug campaign and to resume the stalled probe in 2023.
Kaufman said the disqualification of Gansou and Liera would “ensure the autonomy and irreproachability of the judges” as both had “prior involvement in the most substantive legal question” in the murder case against Duterte.
“The recourse sought will, simultaneously, preserve Mr. Duterte’s right to objectively impartial adjudication,” he added.
On May 6, the PTC 1 dismissed the Duterte camp’s “invitation” for Gansou and Liera to excuse themselves from adjudicating on the issue of the ICC’s jurisdiction over the case.
It cited earlier decisions of the Presidency that “no preemptive request may be made by the parties that a judge request his or her excusal” and that the action “lacks procedural propriety.”
Far-reaching effects
Kaufman stressed that the matter of jurisdiction, which he deemed one of the most contentious issues in the case, and the chamber’s decision on it would have “far-reaching consequences.”
“This matter should not be decided in the case by judges who have formulated a firm opinion on the question of sub judice prior to hearing defense submissions,” he said in the petition for their disqualification.
Kaufman and his team also 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 defense’s challenge on jurisdiction filed on May 1.
“It is a quirk of the Rome Statute which permits jurisdiction to be litigated twice before the same [PTC].” Kaufman said. “The prosecution, as well as the judiciary, is equally charged with ensuring a fair adversarial process and, frankly, should have agreed with the substance of the defense invitation.”
According to him, no new facts will arise that could possibly sway the earlier opinion of the two judges on whether ICC retained jurisdiction over the crimes against humanity committed in the Philippines after the government, then under Duterte, effectively withdrew in 2019 from the Rome Statute, which created the court.
