The DA has warned that a proposed bill for the repeal of SA’s commitment as a signatory to the Rome Statute — to enable it to pull out of the International Criminal Court (ICC) — will not pass through Parliament unchallenged. The bill was tabled in Parliament last Wednesday and will go through formal processes before final approval. It prescribes a legal framework for how SA deals with international crimes committed in this country. But DA MP James Selfe, who is also the opposition party’s federal executive chairman, said the bill was flawed and "is not intended to achieve justice for international crimes but will only assist in evasion of justice". Chief among issues of concern was that the bill "leaves an enormous loophole for prosecutions to be stillborn at the investigative phase". This, said the DA, was because the bill placed the onus on the "ill-placed" Hawks to investigate complaints related to international crimes. While the bill acknowledged the shortcomings of a Hawk-driv...

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