THE Supreme Court has junked for being moot and academic the petitions seeking to declare null and void President Duterte’s unilateral decision to withdraw from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
In a statement, SC spokesman Brian Keith Hosaka said the Court was unanimous in dismissing the consolidated petitions fled by six opposition senators and the Philippine Coalition for the International Criminal Court (PCICC), led by former Commission on Human Rights Chairman Loretta Ann Rosales, challenging the government’s withdrawal from the ICC.
“The decision acknowledged that the President, as primary architect of foreign policy, is subject to the Constitution and existing statute,” the SC said in a resolution released following its en banc session.
“Therefore, the power of the President to withdraw unilaterally can be limited by the conditions for concurrence by the Senate or when there is an existing law which authorizes the negotiation of a treaty or international agreement or when there is a statute that implements an existing treaty,” it added.
The decision, according to Hosaka, noted that there were provisions in a prior law, Republic Act 9851 (the Philippine Act on Crimes Against International Humanitarian Law, Genocide, And Other Crimes Against Humanity), which were amended by the Rome Statute.
Hosaka said the Court also ruled that the judiciary has enough powers to protect human rights contrary to speculations raised by the petitioners.
In their petitions, the petitioners claimed that the Palace’s decision to withdraw its membership from the ICC should be considered invalid since it has no concurrence of at least two-thirds of all the 24 members of the Senate.
They argued that the Office of the President and the DFA gravely abused their discretion in withdrawing the country’s membership in the ICC without the concurrence of at least two-thirds of the Senate underArticle VII, Section 21 of the Constitution.
They pointed out that the Rome Statute is a treaty validly entered into by the Philippines which has the same status as a law enacted by Congress, thus, can only be withdrawn with the approval of Congress.
In withdrawing its membership from the ICC, the petitioners claimed that the respondents committed usurpation of legislative powers which is punishable under the Revised Penal Code.
President Duterte announced on March 14, 2018 the Philippines’s withdrawal of its ratification of the Rome Statute, a United Nations
(UN) treaty creating the ICC.
Duterte cited the ICC’s “baseless, unprecedented and outrageous attacks” against him and his administration as the reason for his withdrawal as a
state party.
Prior to this, ICC special prosecutor Fatou Bensouda started a preliminary examination on the alleged human rights violations amid the Duterte administration’s intensified war on drugs.
Duterte defended his decision to take back the Philippines’s ratification of the Rome Statute, noting that the treaty is not a law since it was not published in the Official Gazette when the Philippines ratified it in August 2011, during the time of former President Benigno Aquino III.
He maintained that it is within the exclusive power of the President to withdraw from the ICC, contrary to the petitioners’ claim that such decision needs the approval of the Senate under Section 21, Article VII of the Constitution.
The said provision specifically says that “entering into a treaty or international agreement requires participation of Congress, that is, through concurrence of at least two-thirds of all the members of the Senate.”
Solicitor General Jose Calida, however, stressed that such provision and constitutional requirement applies only in ratification of new treaties and does not apply to withdrawal from treaties.
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