‘Barisan govt approved Rome Statute accession in 2011 and 2015’

PETALING JAYA: The Barisan Nasional Cabinet approved the accession of the Rome Statute in 2011 and 2015 but it was not fulfilled by the then foreign minister and attorney general, says G25 spokesperson Datuk Noor Farida Ariffin.

Noor Farida, who headed the Legal Department of the Foreign Ministry at that time, said the proposal to accede to the Rome Statute received the support of former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his Cabinet in 2011 despite objection from the Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC).

“Datuk Seri Anifah Aman (then foreign minister) admitted that the Cabinet had agreed to accede to the Rome Statute in March 2011 despite the objection of (then) Attorney General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail.

“By not signing the instrument of accession prepared for his signature, he defied the Cabinet,” she said, adding that Najib and Anifah were misleading the public on the issue.

Quoting a statement by Anifah, she said in 2015, the Cabinet had asked the AG to prepare the necessary papers to accede to the Rome Statute, but the AG did not do so.

“So in 2015, it was the AG who defied the Cabinet,” she said.

She was responding to Anifah’s statement yesterday that his decision not to sign the instrument of accession in March 2011 was based on the AGC’s advice.

“The Cabinet revisited the issue in 2015 and it was decided for Malaysia to accede to the Rome Statute and for the AGC to prepare the necessary papers that could then be tabled during the Cabinet meeting towards this end. But the AGC never prepared the Cabinet papers,” he said in the statement.

He said the Cabinet had waited for the AGC to submit the papers as there were grey areas to deal with.

“When signing any statute or anything on behalf of the country, I have always been very careful as any wrong move may cause negative repercussions domestically or internationally,” he said.

Last Saturday at a forum on the Rome Statute at Universiti Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Noor Farida said the process to ratify the treaty began in 1998 and the Pakatan government was merely completing the process by ratifying it.

She said all parties had agreed, except for the AGC at the time, but the Cabinet overruled the AGC’s objection in 2011 and decided to ratify the Rome Statute then.

For reasons best known to himself, Anifah did not want to sign it, she claimed.

In response to Noor Farida’s comments, Najib said Barisan Nasional did look at the possible ratification of the treaty but decided not to endorse it as the government had accepted the then AG’s advice that the Rome Statute might contradict the Constitution and laws of the country.

On April 5, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said Malaysia would withdraw the ratification of the Rome Statute governing the International Criminal Court to try perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes of aggression, following pressure from certain quarters.