SA pushes to dump ICC
COMMITTEE: PARLIAMENT WANTS SUBMISSIONS TO REPEAL DECISION Deadline of beginning March for written or verbal comment, despite court ruling.
Despite a court call for government to review its decision to remove itself as a signatory to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the parliamentary portfolio committee on justice and correctional services on Sunday invited written and verbal submissions on repealing the decision to leave the court.
“The ANC-led government now has an opportunity to reconsider the wisdom of withdrawing from the ICC and we urge them to do so,” the DA’s James Selfe said.
The formal name of the Bill announced by the committee is the Implementation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Act Repeal Bill [B23- 2016].
Submissions must be received by parliament no later than March 8. Public hearings will be held in parliament.
Since 2015, government has lurched from one court appearance to another, beginning with its failure to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir during a visit to SA at President Jacob Zuma’s invite, and ending in its attempt to withdraw from the ICC.
SA courts have repeatedly slammed government for acting unconstitutionally and unlawfully throughout the entire saga.
“The legal advice of the government is abysmal,” said Selfe. He urged the public to make submissions. “We will make sure those submissions are listened to.”
If the procedure was not followed properly, the latest court judgment had left the door open for the DA to challenge to repeal again, Selfe said.
Conflicts SA presidents have been involved with include the Burundi conflict (Nelson Mandela and Zuma) in the DRC, Cote d’Ivoire and Zimbabwe (Thabo Mbeki and Zuma) and the Libya conflict (Zuma), according to a paper by Katabaro Miti at the University of Pretoria.
Miti drew an ominous conclusion: negotiations are not always the best way to resolve African conflicts. “In many instances antagonists have entered into negotiations as a means of buying time.”