Duterte lawyer told: Focus on case merits

MANILA, Philippines — Months away from the confirmation of charges hearing of detained former president Rodrigo Duterte at the International Criminal Court, opposite camps are arguing over what one lawyer described as “petty semantics.”

According to ICC-accredited lawyer Joel Butuyan, who represents victims of the war on drugs, Duterte’s lead counsel Nicholas Kaufman is fixated on technicalities rather than merits of the case.

“It is very simple – the Registry recommended that a variety of forms of national ID be accepted to identify eligible victims and the Defense requested that the list of acceptable IDs be limited. The Court was very clear when it considered Mr. Kaufman’s submission and instead accepted the Registry’s proposed list – in effect, denying the Defense’s proposal,” he wrote on Facebook.

“My message to Atty. Kaufman: let us focus on the merits of the case. Let us honor the victims by removing procedural roadblocks, not erecting them. Finally, let us allow the truth to come out – not to be buried in legal technicalities, but laid bare before the global eyes on this Court,” he added.

In an interview with Duterte’s supporters at The Hague on Tuesday, Kaufman denied that he was trying to limit victim participation.

“That never happened. All I was doing was relying on what the Philippine Social Security System (SSS) requires for ID to be verified in the Philippines,” he said.

“This is not a question of the judges rejecting something that the defense asked for. This was a response that the defense made to the VPRS (Victims Participation and Reparations Section), which is the internal court unit which is responsible for assessing victims’ applications. That’s all we did. We made observations; we didn’t make a request that was rejected. That was a big lie,” he added.

In an earlier observation, Kaufman said the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I should “insist on the production of a national identity card and or a passport containing an up-to-date photograph.”

In their absence, he said other identification documents should be accepted in a “staggered fashion” mandated by the SSS.

“Limiting the range of identity documents enhances the reliability of the identity verification process and significantly reduces the risk of fraud. The use of varied and insufficiently verified identity documents could lead to misidentification, double-counting and the inclusion of false victims – issues that could trigger unnecessary and time-consuming litigation,” wrote Kaufman.

In his statement, Butuyan called out Kaufman for insinuating that expanding the list of acceptable IDs will result in fraud.

He said Kaufman, through his observations, is asking the families of the drug war victims to “meet higher procedural burdens just to be heard by the Court.”

“Let us also confront the stark imbalance in this case. Duterte has the resources and influence to select and pay for his high-powered legal representation. The families of the victims do not,” Butuyan said.

“Many of them cannot even afford to bury their dead, let alone secure formal identification documents – in fact, their invisibility made them perfect victims for state violence during the drug war for years without cause or consequence,” he added.