By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has abandoned its bid to set a legal precedent around the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the warrant of arrest issued against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
By mutual agreement of all parties in the North Gauteng High Court, the matter will no longer proceed since Putin won’t be visiting the country.
Putin agreed not to attend an economic summit in Johannesburg next month that will include China’s premier and other world leaders.
The ICC has accused Putin and his children’s commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova of the war crime of deporting children from Ukraine to Russia, something Moscow rejects as false.
The development could be viewed as embarrassing for Putin, who is now expected to be the only leader of a country in the bloc not to attend.
The DA launched the application to clarify government’s obligations to execute a warrant of arrest for Putin as a signatory to the Rome Statute of the ICC, and to avoid a repeat of a situation in 2015 involving former Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir.
The ICC treaty has also become part of South African domestic law, meaning the government could be taken to court in South Africa if it failed to honor its commitment to the international court.
The Department of Justice’s director general (DG) informed the court that he had since forwarded a request for an arrest warrant to be issued to the national director of public prosecutions (NDPP).
The court has ordered that the DG pay all the DA’s costs in this matter.
The department further agreed to pay the costs of the legal application, launched by the DA to compel government to arrest Putin if he were to attend the economic summit in next month.
The South African government has strong political ties with Russia, but Putin’s attendance would have exposed it to possible diplomatic and legal repercussions.
South Africa is the current chair of the BRICS group, an acronym for economic heavyweights Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, which sees itself as a counterweight to Western economic domination.