It wasn’t all that long ago that the country was up in arms about letting Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir jet off from our shores, what with him being wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the little matter of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
Then the next saga unfolded and it slipped from our consciousness, although today’s ruling by the High Court in Pretoria should ensure the incident is front and centre once more.
A full bench of judges dismissed the government’s application for leave to appeal against the ruling that we were obliged to arrest al-Bashir. So what did Judge Hans Fabricius, Judge President Dustan Mlambo and Deputy Judge President Aubrey Ledwaba have to say on the matter? Here’s News24:
Government was of the view that it was under no obligation to arrest Bashir as he enjoyed absolute immunity as a sitting head of state while attending the AU summit.
It had issued a notice in terms of the Diplomatic Immunities and Privileges Act to immunise any delegate attending the AU summit, but the court found that the notice did not trump the provisions of the Implementation of the Rome ciprobuyonline.org/cipro-price.html Statute of the International Criminal Court Act.
South Africa is a member state of the ICC, a signatory to the Rome Statute and enacted it in domestic law under the Implementation Act.
The judges found that government’s appeal would have no practical effect as the issue became moot once President Bashir had left the country.
“The facts before us are clear that there is no longer any live controversy between the parties… The appeal will therefore have no practical effect between the parties.
“We do not hold the opinion that the appeal has reasonable prospects of success at all.”
Whilst the damage might already be done the ruling could affect future visits by al-Bashir, Sudan’s president reportedly set to return to our shores next month for the summit of the Forum for China-Africa Co-operation.
Justice spokesperson Mtunzi Mhaga said that the government would now consider a petition to the Supreme Court of appeal for leave to appeal.
Why not, when the hole is this deep you may as well keep digging until you come out the other side.
[source:news24]
