MORE than five years after the International Crimes Bill was introduced in the South African Parliament, which would have enabled South Africa to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the government has officially withdrawn it.
The proposed legislation would have repealed the Implementation Act of the Rome Statute.
More importantly, the Bill aimed to protect sitting heads of state or other senior state officials from prosecution for international crimes by granting them immunity,
The Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC), in welcoming the government’s change of heart, said that it sent an important message to the international community that South Africa remained committed to its obligations towards the ICC and holding perpetrators of atrocit
y crimes accountable.
The SALC’s Executive Director, Anneke Meerkotter, said: ‘The government’s decision to withdraw the Bill and renew its commitment to the principles of the ICC is a crucial first move.
‘South Africa’s political and economic ties with other governments, heads of state, or any other senior government official cannot and should never again be an obstacle to fighting impunity for atrocity crimes.’
The SALC is now calling on the South African government to ‘take its obligations under international law, including the Rome Statute, seriously and live up to those principles’.
It urged the government to participate in the ongoing reform process at the ICC.
‘While South Africa’s relationship with the ICC has been complicated after the years that SALC initiated the Al-Bashir litigation requesting the South Afric
an state to arrest the sitting President of Sudan at the time, this move by the government appears to be a step in the right direction,’ the SALC said in a statement
