SC junks plea to allow de Lima to attend oral arguments over PH withdrawal from world court
THE Supreme Court (SC) en banc on Tuesday junked the plea of opposition senators to allow colleague Leila De Lima to appear before the high court and be heard on the petition they filed jointly for the nullification of the Philippine’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
De Lima is detained at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center in Camp Crame for alleged drug offenses she committed when she was justice secretary. The Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court has jurisdiction over her cases.
The high tribunal gave no credence to petition for lack of merit.
Only Acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio and Justice Francis Jardeleza voted to allow De Lima to go out of prison and argue the case.
In a four-page motion lodged with the Supreme Court en banc last July 24, the opposition senators said they only de Lima could represent them in the oral arguments set on August 14.
The petitioners are Senators Francis Pangilinan, Franklin Drilon, Benigno “Bam” Aquino 4th, Risa Hontiveros, and Antonio Trillanes IV.
Sen. Leila de Lima FILE PHOTO
Another petition was filed by the Philippine Coalition for the International Criminal Court (PCICC).
Named respondents were Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano, Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, UN Ambassador Teodoro Locsin Jr., and Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo.
The two petitions argued that the withdrawal violated the 1987 Constitution for lack of Senate concurrence.
It said that President Duterte “gravely abused his discretion in an act tantamount to an absence or a lack of jurisdiction, when he unilaterally decided to withdraw the membership of the Philippines from the International Criminal court, as his act violated the constitutional system of checks and balances in treaty making under Article 7, Sec. 21 of the 1987 Charter.”
The PCICC said that the Executive Department may not invalidate this legislative act; it may only be recalled, cancelled or voided by the Senate itself or the Supreme Court, if it were unconstitutional.
In their petition for certiorari and mandamus, de Lima’s colleagues argued that under Article 7 Section 21 of the 1987 Constitution, “entering into treaty or international agreement requires participation of Congress, that is, through concurrence of at least 2/3 of all the members of the Senate.”
In the diplomatic note, it said that the “decision to withdraw is the Philippines’ principled stand against those who politicize and weaponize human rights, even as its independent and well-functioning organs and agencies continue to exercise jurisdiction over complaints, issues, problems and concerns arising from its efforts to protect the people.”
They said that the Rome Statute was a treaty validly entered into by the Philippines, which has the same status as a law enacted by Congress.
They stressed that the withdrawal from the Rome Statute would require the approval of legislature. JOMAR CANLAS
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