The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday, March 16, dismissed two petitions which challenged the constitutionality of President Duterte’s notice of withdrawal of the Philippines’ membership in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
A statement issued by its public information office (PIO) stated that the SC dismissed the petitions “for being moot and academic.”
The PIO said:
"The decision acknowledged that the President, as the primary architect of foreign policy, is subject to the Constitution and existing statute. Therefore, the power of the President to withdraw unilaterally can be limited by the conditions for concurrence by the Senate or when there is an existing law that authorizes the negotiation of a treaty or international agreement or when there is a statute that implements an existing treaty.
“The decision noted that in this case, there were provisions in a prior law, Republic Act No. 9851, which were amended by the Rome Statute.
“The Court also noted that the Judiciary has enough powers to protect human rights contrary to speculations raised by the petitioners.”
The PIO said the SC’s unanimous decision was written by Associate Justice Marvic Mario Victor F. Leonen.
On March 14, 2018, the President announced the Philippines’ withdrawal from the ICC citing “baseless, unprecedented and outrageous attacks” against him and his administration.
The President defended his decision to take back the Philippines’ ratification of the Rome Statute as he noted that the treaty is not a law since it was not published in the Official Gazette when the Philippines ratified it in August 2011.
The Philippine government – in a diplomatic note to the United Nations Secretary General – had said “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.”
In 2018, Senators Leila de Lima, Francis Pangilinan, Franklin Drilon, Paolo Benigno Aquino, Risa Hontiveros, and Antonio Trillanes IV filed a petition challenging the President’s action to withdraw from ICC.
The six senators said the President’s withdrawal from the ICC is invalid as it has no concurrence from at least two-thirds of the 24-member Senate.
They wanted the SC to compel the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Philippine Permanent Mission to the United Nations to notify the United Nations Secretary-General of the revocation of the notice of withdrawal from the ICC it received on March 17, 2018.
They said the Rome Statute ICC was validly entered into by the Philippine government and has the same status as a law enacted by Congress and, thus, the withdrawal must be approved by Congress.
Aside from the case filed by the six senators, the other petition was lodged by the Philippine Coalition for the International Criminal Court (PCICC) led by former Commission on Human Rights chair Loretta Rosales.
The PCICC’s petition, on the other hand, told the SC:
"The President 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 Art. VII, Sec. 21 of the 1987 Charter, which prescribes a shared duty towards that end between the Executive and the Legislative branches of government."
It said the withdrawal from the ICC should be nullified as it was “based on capricious, whimsical, ridiculous, misleading or misled, incoherent and/or patently false grounds, with no basis in fact, law or jurisprudence."