(Eagle News) — The Supreme Court has denied detained Senator Leila de Lima’s appeal she be allowed to personally represent herself in oral arguments on the petition she and several others filed against the Philippines’ planned withdrawal from the International Criminal Court.
In denying De Lima’s appeal, the SC en banc, voting 10-2, said her motion for reconsideration presented no new argument that warrants a reversal of the High Court’s earlier decision.
In its earlier decision, the SC said De Lima, who is detained on drug charges, “did not, at any time, plead circumstances or competencies exclusive to her which make her appearance, to the exclusion of her co-petitioners, imperative and indispensable.”
The SC said oral arguments on the petition will push through on Aug. 28, at 2 p.m., in the SC session hall.
Two petitions were filed against the planned ICC withdrawal–one by De Lima and fellow opposition senators Kiko Pangilinan, Franklin Drilon, Bam Aquino, Risa Hontiveros, and Antonio Trillanes IV; and the other by the Philippine Coalition for the International Criminal Court led by former Commission on Human Rights chair Loretta Ann Rosales.
Both petitions have been consolidated by the SC.
On March 14, President Rodrigo Duterte announced the Philippines’ withdrawal of its ratification of the Rome Statute, a United Nations treaty creating the ICC.
“Given the baseless, unprecedented and outrageous attacks on my person as well as against my administration, engineered by the officials of the (UN), as well as the attempt by the (ICC) special prosecutor to place my person within the jurisdiction of the (ICC), in violation of due process and the presumption of innocence expressly guaranteed by the Philippine Constitution and recognized no less by the Rome Stature, I therefore declare and forthwith give notice, as President of the Republic of the Philippines, that the Philippines is withdrawing its ratification of the Rome Statute effective immediately,” the President had said in a statement.
This came after ICC special prosecutor Fatou Bensouda began a preliminary examination on the communication filed against Duterte in connection with the alleged human rights violations in the country amid the administration’s intensified war on drugs. With a report from PNA
