(Eagle News) – An official of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) said that it would require the Senate to actually agree to the withdrawal of the Philippines from the International Criminal Court (ICC) before the country can be considered that it is actually withdrawing from the international body.
CHR commissioner Roberto Cadiz, the current CHR officer-in-charge, also said that it was “too late in the day” for the Philippine government to stop the “preliminary examination” of the ICC on the alleged crimes against humanity supposedly committed by President Rodrigo Duterte and his officials as contained in a complaint filed by lawyer Jude Sabio.
Cadiz said that even if the Philippines withdraws from the ICC, this would not prevent the international court from continuing its conduct of preliminary examination on the alleged crimes against humanity being blamed on President Duterte’s war on drugs.
“Since the withdrawal takes effect one year hence, and since the Court has already started its process of preliminary examination, it’s too late in the day to invoke lack of jurisdiction of the ICC over the so-called extrajudicial killings,” he told the participants in the IBP and UP College of Law sponsored Legal Forum on the country’s withdrawal as party to the Rome Statute at the University of the Philippines campus in Bonifacio Global City in Taguig City.
-Senate concurrence needed in ICC withdrawal-
Cadiz also said that it was “obviously wrong” to think that the Senate concurrence is not needed with Duterte’s decision to withdraw from the ICC or its Rome Statute.
“The President cannot automatically bind us in certain foreign agreements or treaties,” he said during IBP-UP legal forum.
“By the mere fact that the Constitution requires ratification of all treaties entered into by the President with a senate vote of 2/3 of the members of the senate, (this) would show that the people requires that the wisdom of the senate be involved in this process,” he explained.
Cadiz stressed that certain acts of the President including entering into treaties and even withdrawal of treaties “need to be consented to by the Senate.”
-Publication in PHL official gazette not needed, says Cadiz-
The CHR official also digressed from the official position of the government that a treaty should first be published in an official Philippine gazette before it could be considered as part of the laws of the land.
“We take the position that the publication in the official gazette does not apply in this case,” he said explaining the CHR’s position.
“This is a treaty involving 122 or 123 state parties. This is not a case where the Philippines was invited after it was drafted. We were actually part of the drafting of the treaty. We belong to the core of the parties that drafted the treaty,” he said.
“We were very proud of that actually,” Cadiz noted.
The Philippine ICC withdrawal will take effect one year from the submission of the Philippines of its notice to withdraw with the United Nations.
The notice to withdraw from the ICC was dated March 15, 2018, and was delivered by Philippine Ambassador to the UN Teddy Locsin Jr., to the UN office in New York.
The Philippine government said that the decision to withdraw was the country’s “principled stand against those who politicize and weaponize human rights, even as its independent and well-functioning organs and agencies continue to exercise jurisdiction over complaints, issues, problems and concerns arising from its efforts to protect its people.”
The Philippines assured the “community of nations” that despite the withdrawal, it “continues to be guided by the rule of law embodied in its Constitution, which also enshrines the country’s long-standing tradition of upholding human rights.”
(Eagle News Service)