Alka Verma-
Published On: November 20, 2021 at 17:30 IST
The Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan suspended an Investigation regarding the Rights abused during Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s crackdown on drugs.
“The Prosecution has temporarily suspended its Investigative activities while it assesses the scope and effect of the deferral request,” stated Mr. Khan.
In September, all the Judges at the ICC gave a nod to conduct an Investigation about the campaign in which allegedly thousands of Drug Peddlers succumbed to death, the Officials of the Philippines stated that these killings were done in self-defense and henceforth ICC had no right to interfere in between.
Adding to this, the Government of Duterte also made it very clear that they are not going to support the ICC in this investigation.
On November 10, Manila requested the ICC to take back the Case, as they were implementing their own Investigations and Prosecutions for the same Acts.
However, when the ICC gave the decision to suspend the probe, Karlo Nograles, acting spokesperson for Duterte welcomed the decision.
“We welcome the judiciousness of the new ICC prosecutor who has deemed it fit to give the matter a fresh look, and we trust that the matter will be resolved in favor of the exoneration of our government and the recognition of the vibrancy of our justice system,” stated Mr. Nograles.
While the Government welcomed the decision, on the other hand, a group of lawyers and human rights activists requested the ICC not to remove the glimmer of hope for families of drug-war victims.
“We ask the ICC not to allow itself to be swayed by the claims now being made by the Duterte administration,” stated the National Union of People’s Lawyers, which represents some victims’ families.
“The Philippine justice system is extremely slow and unavailing to the majority of poor and unrepresented victims”, it added.
Adding to this, Human Rights Watch also stated that the claim of the Government that existing mechanisms of the Philippines that provided justice to citizens was absurd.
The organization also mentioned that it hopes that ICC will consider the current Justice system of the Philippines and work accordingly.
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