What SA believes to be unfair treatment by the International Criminal Court (ICC) was one of the reasons it decided to withdraw from the treaty, Justice Minister Michael Masutha told the Assembly of State Parties in The Hague yesterday. According to a Beeld report, the government’s explanation that its obligations to the African Union and peace efforts are hampered by the ICC’s interpretation of justice was also restated, but Masutha took the opportunity to emphasise how aggrieved he felt at SA's treatment by the court.

‘SA was entitled to just and fair treatment by the ICC, but didn’t receive it.’ He was referring to the handling of the Omar al-Bashir debacle when the ICC engaged with SA in terms of Article 97 of the Rome Statute. Masutha told delegates this article was supposed to be of a diplomatic rather than judicial nature, but when SA engaged with the court, a pre-trial judge was involved from the start. Masutha said the ICC ‘ignored’ its objections concerning Article 97 and its complaints about the diplomatic immunity issue. However, Assembly president Sidiki Kaba explained in his opening address that SA’s concerns were being addressed through working groups and were on the Assembly’s agenda. However, Masutha wasn’t present to hear Kaba’s explanation as SA sent a senior state legal adviser, André Stemmet, to represent the country at the formalities that took most of the day.

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 The DA, meanwhile, has confirmed its legal challenge to the decision to withdraw will go ahead in the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria), with its legal team pushing for the matter to be heard before the end of the month. In a statement on the Politicsweb site, the party says: ‘We launched an urgent application for direct access to the Constitutional Court last month, in order to challenge the constitutional validity of a notice initiating SA’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute of the ICC. We contend that this notice of intention is in conflict with both sections 231(2) and 7(2) of the Constitution, and thus invalid and unconstitutional.’ Noting this week’s Constitutional Court decision not to allow its application for direct access on the basis that it was not in the interests of justice for the matter to be dealt with by that court at this stage, the DA says ‘we launched substantively the same papers in the both the Constitutional Court and the High Court on the same date, and thus we will proceed with the matter in the High Court.’

See statement on Politicsweb site