MANILA – Senators belonging to the minority bloc have asked the Supreme Court to allow Sen. Leila de Lima to defend their petition questioning President Rodrigo Duterte’s move to withdraw from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The oral arguments are scheduled on Aug. 14.
De Lima is currently detained at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center over drug-related cases.
In their July 6 manifestation with motion, senators Francis Pangilinan, Franklin Drilon, Paolo Benigno Aquino IV, Risa Hontiveros, and Antonio Trillanes IV asked the SC to grant de Lima’s earlier petition.
“Undersigned manifesting senators in the course of their preparations for this case and in compliance with this Honorable Court’s directive for the respective parties or their counsels to attend the oral arguments for this case as scheduled, are of the strong conviction that the arguments for the cause of all the petitioners will be best presented before this Honorable Court by their colleague, Senator De Lima,” the opposition senators said.
Duterte announced in March that the Philippines is withdrawing its membership from the ICC, where he was accused of crimes against humanity over his administration’s “war on drugs” that resulted in thousands of deaths.
In a May 16 petition filed before the SC, the minority bloc argued that a treaty withdrawal needs the concurrence of at least two-thirds of all the members of the Senate.
“Executive cannot abrogate or repeal a law. In the same vein, the executive cannot unilaterally withdraw from a treaty or international agreement because such withdrawal is equivalent to a repeal of a law,” the petition read.
The Senate ratified the Rome Statute of the ICC in 2011, becoming its 117th State Party./PN
