De Lima wants to attend ICC oral arguments

MANILA — Sen. Leila De Lima has asked the Supreme Court to overturn its ruling barring her from participating in oral arguments on the government’s withdrawal from the international tribunal.

De Lima filed a motion for reconsideration on the August 7 resolution that threw out her plea to be allowed to personally argue the minority senators’ petition on the executive branch’s withdrawal of the country’s membership to the International Criminal Court.

The senator, in her plea, stressed that she is merely asking for a furlough, and not bail. She said that to be allowed to participate in the oral arguments scheduled on August 28 would be logicstically similar to her leaving detention for court appearances.

The SC, in denying her petition, said De Lima’s capacity to appear as participant in the case “must yield to the fundamental restrictions on her liberty borne by her current detention.”

But De Lima argued: “When the right to appear in propria persona (for one’s self) is invoked, even by a detention prisoner, it should not be so easily defeated by a mere counter-balancing of the State’s interests which, in the first place, are not even violated or compromised, for the simple reason that furloughs have been granted by courts in this jurisdiction for the longest time.”—