From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2013
Fred from Molo would like to know whether Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed will this time succeed in her lobby mission to push for amendment of the Rome Statutes to provide for immunity from prosecution to sitting heads of state and government.
She says AU was confident of garnering the support of a two-thirds majority of the states’ parties necessary to effect the amendment in the interest of peace and reconciliation in Kenya.
Fred I don’t think this is going to be possible to get two thirds support given that nine of the African states supporting the amendments may be blocked from voting as they are in arrears of the ICC court’s budget.
Nine out of its 122 members are in arrears and will therefore lose their voting rights at the Assembly of State Parties meeting to be held in The Hague November 20, 2013. Only 34 countries from Africa are members of the court.
According to financial report as of September 13, 2013, many African countries are heavily indebted to the court. They include Tanzania, Senegal, Niger, Ghana, Gabon, Djibouti, Comoros, Guinea and Liberia.
Since Kenya is heavily counting on African countries to push through amendments to Article 27 to grant immunity to sitting heads of governments, this mission is almost impossible.
According to article 112, paragraph 8 of the Rome Statute, “a State Party which is in arrears in the payment of its financial contributions toward the costs of the Court shall have no vote in the Assembly and in the Bureau if the amount of its arrears equals or exceeds the amount of the contributions due from it for the preceding two full years.”
Assuming all 122 members will be present at The Hague, Kenya will need 81 members to support its proposed amendments. With 34 African states supporting, Kenya will be forced to look out for another 47 states to support its proposals which is not going to be easy.
If the eight African countries are barred from voting due to their indebtedness, Kenya will need to get the support of 56 other countries to meet the requisite support from 81 members’ states for any of the proposed amendments to succeed, which is still not going to be as possible as that.
In Kenya, the ICC case was taken up when the government failed to meet a deadline to establish a domestic tribunal to try suspected perpetrators of the 2007 post-election violence.
The AU has asked its members who are parties to the ICC to push for an amendment to the Rome Statute — the 1998 treaty that established the tribunal — that would bar heads of state from being tried during their terms in office.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
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Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ
UN Disarmament
Conference, 2002