Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) – Africa’s testy relationship with the International Criminal Court (ICC) is back on the spotlight this week as South Africa moves to formulate a proposal that will see justice delivered on a continent where there is a great deal of trepidation about “foreign meddling” in local affairs.
As the ICC on Tuesday set October 7 , 2014 as the new date for the opening of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta’s trial, it has come under fire over its handling of the case against his deputy William Ruto who is on trial on similar charges after witnesses were bribed or threatened into withdrawing their testimony.
South Africa’s Deputy President, Kgalema Motlanthe, has now moved to address the impasse between the court and the continent by saying he regards it as an indispensable judicial organ which should complement the African Court on Human Rights.
In an address at the University of Pretoria on Monday, he said Africa needs its own court, vested with universal jurisdiction over the three core international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
He was quick to point out that the African Court is not envisaged as a substitution for the ICC. Rather, it is an initiative “necessitated by the challenges that seem to impair the efficacy of the ICC with regard to the African situation”.
He said the African Court would help bridge the widening gulf that was beginning to emerge between the ICC and its detractors.
“Such a court will be able to refer matters to the ICC in cases where it experiences innate limitations or where, in the context of its relationship with the ICC, it is ideal to do so in the interests of justice.”
Tensions between the court and the continent reached a head last November when the court’s annual Assembly of States Parties, meeting in The Hague, saw Kenyan delegates lashing out at the global court for targeting the East African country.
Nairobi used its platform at the meeting to warn that the ICC case against Kenyatta and Ruto risks destabilising the region. South Africa subsequently urged the court to follow its example and pursue reconciliation rather than formal criminal justice in dealing with Kenyatta and Ruto.
At the time, Deputy Justice Minister John Jeffery suggested that South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) had found the “middle ground”.
“I wonder whether South Africa’s miracle solution under the TRC process would have been possible if there was an insistence of following a path of formal justice in criminal courts,” he said.
