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Regarding the prosecutor, it did affect the case 1. The allegations were revealed just before the arrest warrants were released 2. The arrest warrants were ru

• bawolff 1y ago
  > The arrest warrants were rushed, brushing aside valid concerns (the court later decided it was unlawful) Which valid concern specificly do you mean? Do you mean Israel's juridsictional challenge? The prosecutor wasn't the one who decided that. It really wasn't brushed aside, there was just an ambiguity in the court rules on at what stage is the appropriate time to raise such a challenge. Initially the court said it was too early and that Israel had to wait until after the suspects were aprehended and the trial starts. Israel appealed, won the appeal, and the appeal court just said no point in waiting, we should just hear the challenge now. Either way the prosecutor wasn't the one deciding this, and it was largely procedural; Israel would get to make their challenge either way, it was just a fight about when they were allowed to make it. I'd agree generally that the sexual harrasment case is pretty embarrasing for the ICC generally, and the office of the prosecutor especially. However, even if they were rushed or the prosecutor did a bad job, i don't see how that matters. Its the judges who decides if the prosecutor has provided enough evidence to show reasonable cause, not the prosecutor. If the warrants were rushed that would benefit the accused, as presumably that would mean the prosecutors presentation to the pre-trial chamber was rushed and not as good as it could have been (and indeed we did see the prosecutor push for a few charges that were rejected by the pre-trial chamber (extermination and the mode of liability for attacks directed at civilian objects). If the theory is that he rushed it, the most likely conclusion is the accused benefitted by not being charged with those things the pre trial chamber rejected)
  • breppp 1y ago
    I believe that if this would happen in a normal court case this would end in mistrial. It is not true that this must be in favor of Israel, a criminal that tries to prevent his trial by influencing witnesses, could also try to influence the judges, misrepresent evidence and such, if he thinks moving forward with the trial will save him. There is evidence he pressured the victim precisely on the reason of this trial success, without a trial he will go to jail. This also raises a question, if there are multiple persons in the supposedly neutral prosecution team including victim and head of prosecution, that believe that ignoring a rape is worth it in order to follow through with a trial against a specific country, so early in the trial, then how do we know that the rest of this organization including judges does not have major prejudices against Israel? I think that if you take the fact that they completely ignored the principle of complementarity, claiming essentially Israel does not have an independent judiciary system, when said judiciary system is prosecuting Nethanyahu currently for a different crime while upping the irony when half of the ICC judges come from countries with actually non-functioning judiciary systems Then add to it the fact that they passed through a highly creative way of interpreting their jurisdiction, while ignoring the chance for the accused to plea and ending that with highly unusual arrest warrants against a current head of state, whose process is criticized by the very same court a year later. Then you get something that looks bad, at least to me
    • bawolff 1y ago
      > I believe that if this would happen in a normal court case this would end in mistrial. Generally you cannot have a mistrial before having a trial. The trial hasn't started yet. ICC trials require the defendents to physically be present in the court room and the defendents have so far chosen not to surrender themselves (unsurprisingly). All that has taken place so far is the ICC equivalent of a grand jury procedure. > if he thinks moving forward with the trial will save him. There is evidence he pressured the victim precisely on the reason of this trial success, without a trial he will go to jail. Well at this stage, the warrants have been issued. There is still Israel's juridsictional challenge to them to deal with, but by and large this stage is done and there is nothing left to do. The next stage starts once the accused are aprehended. It seems really unlikely the ICC is going to be capture the accused, and it seems really unlikely they will self-surrender. The most likely outcome is that nothing further happens. The prosecutor has done his role. Maybe there could be some sort of argument like this if stuff was ongoing, but it isn't ongoing, so i just don't see it. [One thing i think that gets lost in these discussions that is really important to remember, is that the ICC prosecutor has a kind of bad conviction rate. In the unlikely event this actually goes to trial, we shouldn't consider it a foregone conclusion. The accused might win] > I think that if you take the fact that they completely ignored the principle of complementarity, claiming essentially Israel does not have an independent judiciary system, when said judiciary system is prosecuting Nethanyahu currently for a different crime while upping the irony when half of the ICC judges come from countries with actually non-functioning judiciary systems Thus far, it doesn't seem like Israel has made a serious good faith criminal investigation into the conduct in question. More to the point, it doesn't seem like Israel has even claimed that they intend to. It would make a big difference if Israel could point to someone and say we assigned this person to investigate the allegations, here is their report, they didn't think charges were warranted because X. Israel does generally seem to have an independent judiciary that is not afraid to go after people at the top. That is something to be proud of. However that in itself is not enough for complementary - there needs to be a criminal investigation of the same conduct as the ICC is worried about. > while ignoring the chance for the accused to plea The accused can plea any time they want. They first have to surrender themselves (or otherwise be aprehended). Entering a plea (or more generally defending yourself) is part of the process of a trial. The trial has to start first. > highly unusual arrest warrants against a current head of state Its a bit unusual, but certainly not the first time. They issued a warrant for Omar al-Bashir when he was president of Sudan.