MANILA – Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo refuted the claim of the International Commission on Jurists that President Rodrigo Duterte’s decision to withdraw from the International Criminal Court was “hasty and ill-conceived.”
“There was no haste when the President decided to withdraw the country from the Rome Statute,” Panelo said in a press statement Wednesday.
Duterte had been warning about exiting the ICC if it “continued to infringe on the country’s sovereignty and allow itself to be utilized by the President’s detractors aimed at discrediting the government,” said the lawyer.
“Notwithstanding this warning, the ICC and the United Nation officials continued to issue public statements and comments creating the impression to the world that our government is already guilty of the crimes being accused of,” he stressed.
Panelo also said the ICJ was “gravely mistaken” for thinking that the justifications for the withdrawal were “a litany of poorly thought out of pseudo-legal arguments.”
The justifications were “grounded on clear violations of the 1987 Constitution and case law on the subject, and not for personal reasons,” he explained.
“There is no such animal as pseudo-legal arguments in law. What is there are pseudo-protectors of human rights masquerading as defenders thereof who assault the constitutional rights of the President,” he added.
According to Panelo, the ICC disregarded the principle of complementarity when it launched a preliminary examination into the Duterte administration’s crackdown on drugs.
“The ICC continued with its proceedings despite the fact that the Philippines’ domestic authorities and courts are able and willing to investigate and prosecute the crimes alleged in the complaint before it,” he said, noting that the ICC should have immediately dismissed the complaint.
At the graduation rites of the Philippine National Police Academy on Wednesday, Duterte reiterated that the ICC has no jurisdiction over him and that the Rome Statute is not enforceable in the country because it was not published in the Official Gazette when it was ratified in 2011.
“If there is no publication, there is no law to be talking about. What is the basis for continuing an investigation if the law you are relying [on] is flawed and it is total alien to us?” Duterte said. (PNA)
