MANILA – Two judges from the International Criminal Court (ICC) asserted that there is no basis to question their impartiality as they rejected the request made by the counsel of former President Rodrigo Duterte to disqualify them from adjudicating the jurisdictional matter in his case.
In their reply to the Duterte legal team, Judges Reine Adélaide Sophie Alapini-Gansou and María del Socorro Flores Liera stated that there are no valid reasons to exclude them from this issue.
The two judges also emphasized that there exists a presumption of impartiality regarding judges, and a significant burden must be met to challenge this presumption.
In this instance, they indicated that the rationale provided by the Duterte camp for their disqualification “is erroneous and legally indefensible, and has the potential to induce delays.”
The Duterte legal team previously contended that the judges had made a ruling on a related matter in the same case, suggesting it is improbable for them to alter their stance on the issue.
Alapini-Gansou and Liera clarified that when they previously addressed the jurisdictional question, they did so within the confines of the relevant procedural stage and without prejudice to any future decisions regarding the same matter.
They pointed out that the ruling was solely concerned with whether the prosecutor was permitted to advance with the investigation into the Duterte case.
Furthermore, they noted that the new arguments presented by Duterte’s counsel to contest the ICC’s jurisdiction were not included in the considerations of the earlier ruling.
“Thus, it is untenable to suggest that judges cannot adjudicate a matter which is legally within their competence just because they previously issued judicial decisions at different stages of the proceedings in the same Situation on the basis of different arguments,” they said.
“As mentioned earlier, judges are professionals capable of deciding on issues before them relying solely and exclusively on the evidence and submissions adduced in the particular case,” they added.
The two judges also said that they always act in accordance with their duties under the Rome Statute and asked the plenary to reject the Duterte camp’s request to disqualify them./PN
