South Africa's main opposition party
has filed papers with the Constitutional Court to challenge the government's
decision to pull out of the International Criminal Court (ICC), it said on
Monday.
South Africa will become the first
country to quit the Hague-based court next year, after formally declaring its
departure last week, saying ICC membership conflicted with its diplomatic
immunity laws.
The opposition Democratic Alliance
(DA) hopes the Constitutional Court, the final arbiter on constitutional
issues, can intervene.
"The notice of withdrawal is in
breach ... of the Constitution, as it was delivered without first securing a
resolution of Parliament authorising South Africa’s withdrawal," the party
said in a statement setting out its legal argument.
South Africa last year announced its
intention to leave after the ICC criticised it for disregarding an order to
arrest Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who is accused of genocide and
war crimes, when he visited the country. Bashir denies the accusations.
The 124-member ICC is the first
legal body with permanent global jurisdiction to prosecute genocide, crimes
against humanity and war crimes but has secured only five substantive verdicts
in 14 years, all of them on Africans, leading to criticism that it unfairly targets
Africa.
Burundi's leader last week signed a
decree to leave the ICC, and Kenya's parliament is considering following suit.
The head of the ICC's governing
body, Senegal's justice minister Sidiki Kaba, said: "We regret these
withdrawals."
"Clearly, the criticism brought
against the International Criminal Court is that it is a vehicle of a two-speed
justice, a selective justice, a justice of the white man," he said, but
insisted "it was African countries themselves that chose to take their cases
to the ICC."
South Africa's Business Day
newspaper said in an editorial on Monday: "The intention to withdraw from
the court undermines South Africa's reputation as a defender of human
rights."
-Reuters
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