Duterte allies trying to politicize ICC process, says int’l law expert
The denial by the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) of the motion made by Salvador Medialdea to defer Friday’s hearing and the passive reaction of the judges to his claims that former President Rodrigo Duterte was renditioned to The Hague indicated that the tribunal avoids politicizing the case.
And for a former leader and his subordinates who held so much power and control in the past had found themselves in a situation “where they don’t even know the law and disrespect for the court doesn’t work,” a New York-based international law expert told the Inquirer.
Ruben Carranza, senior associate at the International Center for Transitional Justice, on Saturday said Duterte’s camp showed it had no legal strategy and familiarity with the ICC procedures, and worse, attempted to turn the prosecution of the ex-president into a politically motivated act.
“They are indeed at this point wanting to politicize the process only to discover that this is (the ICC) that deals with many politicized criminal cases, but tries its best to depoliticize them and to focus on the legal and factual issues in the case,” Carranza said in a phone interview.
Duterte’s former executive secretary, who represented him at the initial appearance hearing on Friday, sought permission to make a “manifestation,” a practice common to Philippine courts, but not to the ICC.
‘Fully mentally aware’
After Presiding Judge Iulia Antoanella Motoc allowed him to proceed, Medialdea told the court that Duterte’s arrest for alleged crimes against humanity in relation to thousands of killings in his brutal drug war was a “political score-settling” and that the manner he was brought to The Hague was “degrading,” calling it a “rendition,” “kidnapping” and “abduction.”
Duterte, who will turn 80 on March 28, was arrested despite his old age and many ailments, Medialdea said. Motoc told him that after Duterte came under ICC custody, he was given medical attention and that an ICC doctor determined that he was “fully mentally aware and fit” to face Friday’s hearing, albeit remotely via video link.
Duterte appeared weak and sleepy and seemed to have difficulty speaking, and at one point, asked the judge to repeat her question about where and when he was born to confirm his identity.
The presiding judge, a Romanian, reminded Medialdea that Duterte was made aware of the arrest warrant and his rights.
Medialdea requested a postponement of the initial appearance hearing for next week, citing lack of time to confer with Duterte. It was rejected by the court.
Uncharted territory
“This first initial appearance hearing does not need much preparation, as I have said to you on a number of occasions,” the presiding judge said.
Motoc said Duterte would have the opportunity to raise concerns about his arrest and even challenge the court’s jurisdiction prior to the confirmation hearing, set for Sept. 23. That hearing will allow Duterte to raise all the matters cited by Medialdea, Motoc said.
Carranza, a former member of the Presidential Commission on Good Government, said that the way Medialdea presented himself through a manifestation was “disrespectful to the court.”
“It’s also partly the problem of having been so powerful in a country that they didn’t need to follow the law or to respect the courts,” he said.
The initial hearing demonstrated how different the ICC is from Philippine courts, legal experts noted.
Sui generis
Carranza pointed out that even Duterte’s last-minute virtual appearance, which was allowed without any formal request from Medialdea, showed that the defense team was treading on uncharted territory.
Retired ICC Judge Raul Pangalangan, the only Filipino so far to serve on The Hague-based court, said that international criminal tribunals were sui generis, or a class in themselves, but Filipinos “tend to make [international judicial processes] into familiar categories.”
“We just try to see them solely in terms of the old familiar boxes that we know,” he said in a forum on the ICC proceedings at the University of the Philippines College of Law on Friday.
Pangalangan, a former Inquirer publisher, said that it was ironic that some people were invoking a provision in the Rome Statute urging that Duterte be presented before a Philippine court but at the same time insisting that the country was no longer a member of ICC
The Philippines withdrew from the ICC treaty in 2019 on orders of Duterte.
Harry Roque, who arrived at The Hague, the Netherlands on Thursday, was disappointed that the court did not tackle the kidnapping claim, which he said was the “means to divest the court” of the right to try Duterte.
“We believe that the court should rule on the legality of kidnapping as a means of acquiring jurisdiction,” Roque said on Facebook live minutes after the Pre-Trial Chamber concluded Friday’s hearing in less than 30 minutes.
‘Grandstanding’ hit
Duterte case was docketed as Case No. ICC-01/21-01/25, “Prosecutor vs. Rodrigo Roa Duterte.”
Human rights group Karapatan on Saturday said Medialdea “resorted to grandstanding” during the hearing when he “attempt[ed] to bully (the court) into defensiveness” by accusing it of kidnapping Duterte.
It said that Duterte “tried hard to look like a broken man” in his “latest attempt to play the victim card.”
“Human rights violations victims and their families who were watching did not buy it,” it added.
