Kenya fights to have ICC ruling reversed

Kenya has made its first submission in an appeal against a ruling by International Criminal Court judges on the admissibility of cases against six of its citizens.

The government is accusing the Pre-Trial Chamber of not considering all its submissions prior to the rejection of its application challenging the admissibility of the cases.

It says the decision contained procedural and legal errors and should be reversed.

“The Appeals Chamber should return the matter to the existing — or a reconstituted — Pre-Trial Chamber to hear and assess the evidence on issues of complementarity together with arguments from all parties,” government lawyers have said.

The government argues that prior to the ruling, it had submitted a detailed report of investigations that included the Ocampo Six, but which were ignored by the Pre-Trial Chamber II.

Kenya also argues that the ICC, in line with the Rome Statute, retains jurisdiction of such cases if “the State is unwilling or unable genuinely to carry out investigations”.

“The Pre-Trial Chamber did not find that the Government of Kenya was either “unwilling” or “unable” to investigate the six suspects,” the lawyers tell the Appeals Chamber.

Kenya says the Chamber denied it the opportunity to provide further information about the investigation, and yet used “absence of information” as the reason to reject the admissibility application.

The government seeks to have cases against Eldoret North MP William Ruto, Tinderet MP Henry Kosgey, journalist Joshua Sang, Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, Head of Public Service Francis Muthaura and Postmaster-General Hussein Ali returned to Kenya for trial.