Cape Town — Pressure on President Jacob Zuma to distance himself from the African Union (AU) decision to ignore the arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir mounted yesterday when a host of civil society organisations and prominent South Africans urged him to honour treaty obligations.
SA is a signatory to the Rome Statute under which the International Criminal Court (ICC) was established. Because the treaty has been ratified by Parliament, for SA to not observe its obligations is arguably unconstitutional and against the law. The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for al- Bashir and this requires signatory states to execute the warrant should he land on their soil.
At the recent AU summit in Libya it was decided by African leaders that the continent would collectively ignore the warrant.
Yesterday, human rights organisations in SA, including the statutory Human Rights Commission, the Centre for Applied Legal Studies, the Centre for Human Rights at Pretoria University, the Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention, the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, the Human Rights Institute of SA, the International Centre for Transitional Justice, the Institute for Security Studies, the Khulumani Support Group, the Legal Resources Centre and Lawyers for Human Rights, called for the government to abide by SA's ICC obligations and to distance itself from the AU position.
The organisations were joined in the statement by Archbishop Desmond Tutu; Richard Goldstone, former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and former judge of the Constitutional Court; Adv Dumisa Ntsebeza, a member of the international commission of inquiry on Darfur appointed in terms of United Nations resolution 1564; Kader Asmal, the former minister and honorary professor at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and University of the Western Cape; Hugh Corder, a professor of public law at UCT; Yasmin Sooka, a former truth commission commissioner; Prof John Dugard of the Centre for Human Rights, Pretoria University; Jody Kollapen, chairman of the South African Human Rights Commission; and Karthy Govender, of the South African Human Rights Commission and professor of law at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
The group said Zuma and International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane were present at the AU meeting when the decision was approved to ignore the ICC warrant and "neither the president nor the foreign minister is reported to have raised any objections .
"SA's endorsement of the declaration requires it to break its international treaty obligations and to defy its own law and constitution . As a state party to the Rome Statute, SA is obliged to co-operate fully with the ICC in the arrest and transfer of President al-Bashir to the ICC, whether or not it agrees with the indictment.
"Should the South African government persist with its support for the decision, it will do so in open defiance of its own constitution and law."
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So all these prrofessors, commissions, centres, institutes,group,formerS of this justice and that right only believe that their help can come from ICC? it is particularly disappointing that they are only creating unnecessary Tsunami to engulf president Jacob Zuma should he become confused about the right path. South Africa is not the only African Country that is signatory to the so called Rome Statute. Other African countries are also signatories but they were like South Africa Obedient to the AU resolution which says that the arrest and transfer of el Bashir will disrupt the already ongoing peace process in Sudan. not that el Bashir has not done wrong! do we want to deny that there is peace process in Sudan? Liberian Charles Taylor through former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo was captured and tranferred to our colonial masters hermitage in Netherland, and today US is gradually appearing on the testimonial screen. if we mention US and Western hegemony, our own people will say leave the past! I also agree with them but we must mention that they are the architects of many crises in the world. what do you think? Among all the bodies mentioned above, not all of them will deny that they receive either phone call or e-mail instructing them from the colonial masters bench to act in this or that manner. I think that what we need do is to make the AU leaders take action against whatever crime el-Bashir has commited against the people of Sudan and the continent of Africa. we can request that AU advise el-Bashir to step down from power and organise a free and fair election. it is possible in Africa we did it in South Africa, in Ghana, Tanzania etc. Let us believe in our power, because it is the only way we can get ourselves out of this arena of colonial shame!
The issue is whether ROME or AFRICA calls the shots in matters that have been decided by the African Union.
The legal pundits in South Africa are stupid and politically naive, and extremely deferential to the views of INVADER JURISPRUDENCE. Given their training---and lawyers are not great thinkers---the one-sided position of this set of "hired guns" is understandable, but eminently condemnable.
My money is on the position of the AU, given the concrete facts of the matter. And, the eggheads are theoretical lawyers; politicians are not blinded by theory,
I thought lawyers were supposed to be sensitive to facts. Are they capable of understanding POLITICAL FACTS that control the position of the African Union?
Given the noise from South Africa, doubts abound, at least, about South African juridical eggheads.
Africa MUST UNITE and carry on exactly what the Africa Union said. There are those outside forces who are always trying to destroy and distabilize Africa; they always think that Africa is not only a dust bin but a basket continent. If Africans do not Unite and stand by each other, we "Africans" are alway giving the voices and causes to those who always want to destroy Africa, and to keep on talking negatively about Africa and Africans as a whole. President Bashire indictment is a conspiracy by many outside forces who alway have this negative thinking about Africa that it belongs to them and they can do any towards Africa without any question; they lie. They future generations are closely looking at what's going on, and the way things are being done in today's Africa. President Suma should resist pressure and follow many of his brothers and sisters dissicions NOT to arrest President Bashire. Last but not least, what have they Europeans done to those Europeans who have systematically brutilize Africans? What have they done to correctively show the world?
It is high time South Africa showed some leadership. South Africa's performance on Zimbabwe was dismal and apathetic and amounted to a total betrayal. That was/is enough. Now is the time for South Africa to redeem itself. African politics is perpetually failing Africa and Africans. This is an opportunity for the judiciary to step up to the plate and do something civilized and save and fight for Africa. African politics is corrupt, dictatorial, and owned run by a cabal of thugs who have strategically closed wagons around El Bashir so that they too will be protected from future predicament of prosecution. Don't listen to these criminal and murderous socalled presidents that dot and populate the African continent and thus keeping Africa mired in backwardness unfound anywhere else in the world.
The future of Africa lies in exercising power of all the three key branches of good governance of a modern state - legislature (politics), judiciary (law), and executive -that should be mutually motoring and counter balancing each other, to avoid and retrain the excesses of abuse of power.
Right now AU politics isn't worth a hoot. What an opportunity for the judiciary (law) to show that it can be as effective as the political wing (and the executive) in fighting for African interests.
Bravo to these legal and civic pressure groups. It is one critical weapon in fighting the demonic despots of Africa.
My dear Africa,awake from thy slumber!Granted,yes,and undaubtably,Al Bashir had been the sponsor or an acquisant on-looker in the trains of halocaust masterminded by janjaweed and a fugive anywhere is under the law branded with indelible atarvistic tatoo of the murderer Cain,let us not be stupid enough to accept the West want the head of Al Bashir on a platter for altruistic reasons-before Sudan invited China to mine her oil America and her cronies whose possession the world court is never saw genocide in Sudan!Al Bashir never d
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