The Supreme Court has sustained its earlier ruling that denied the plea of detained Senator Leila de Lima for furlough to allow her to argue for the petitioners seeking to invalidate President Rodrigo Duterte’s decision to withdraw the country’s membership from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
In an en banc resolution, the SC turned down De Lima’s motion for reconsideration seeking permission to allow her to “appear and personally represent herself” during the oral argument of the petition scheduled on Aug. 28.
On Aug. 7, the SC voted to deny De Lima’s plea to argue for the petition she and her fellow opposition senators have filed seeking to nullify the Palace’s decision to withdraw the country’s adherence to the Rome Statute for being unconstitutional.
Last Aug. 16, 2018, De Lima sought a reconsideration of the SC denial of her plea to join the oral argument.
However, in ruling against De Lima, the high court denied her appeal after finding that no new argument had been presented to warrant a reconsideration of its earlier ruling.
The SC also directed that the oral argument on the consolidated petitions seeking to void the Philippine government’s withdrawal from the ICC would proceed on Aug. 28, 2018 at 2 pm at the Supreme Court Session Hall, as scheduled.
The oral arguments will tackle the petition filed by De Lima along with Senators Francis Pangilinan, Franklin Drilon, Paolo Benigno Aquino, Risa Hontiveros, Antonio Trillanes IV seeking to nullify President Duterte’s decision, for being violative of the Constitution, particularly Article VII, Section 21 of the 1987 Constitution, which provides that “entering into treaty or international agreement requires participation of Congress, that is, through concurrence of at least two-thirds of all the members of the Senate.”
The second petition was filed by the Philippine Coalition for the International Criminal Court led by former Commission on Human Rights chairperson Loretta Ann Rosales.
On March 14, Duterte announced the Philippines’ withdrawal of its ratification of the Rome Statute, a United Nations treaty creating the ICC.