Professor Pieter van der Mei of the Maastricht University has expressed concerns over the deliberate undermining of the International Criminal Court (ICC) by the African union.
According to the professor he believes this is as a result of the ICC targeting African leaders.
“Among the critics of course we have the African Union. I have the belief that they are pro -actively deliberately undermining the ICC… I can understand to some extent of the critic that ICC is targeting African leaders, on one hand I’m not inclined to take African Union and its critic too seriously. I would, if they would come up with serious alternative. If they will commit themselves and they will commit themselves to international criminal justices, if they come out with an alternative fine.
Professor Pieter van der Mei was of the view that although things are not going in the right direction with the ICC, the mistakes shouldn’t be blamed on the court because it is a structural problem.
“I believe that yes there are some problems with the ICC and the entire problems are structural in nature. Very often when you listen to debates there are also personal attacks… any prosecutor, any judge, any academic, anybody makes mistakes that’s not the court problem it’s a structural problem.”
However, he indicated that the debate in ICC are antagonizing as parties only want to be heard rather than listen.
“It seems the debate in the ICC are increasingly antagonizing, you’re either an opponent or an advocate… all the parties seem to be expressing their view and they don’t listen to the others, they don’t have an open ear for opponents. Those who criticize the ICC don’t want to listen to the goody goody stories of the advocates.
The opponents are usually the most vocal and it is not so strange that it is always easy to criticize than to constructively build up something.”
Prof. Van der Mei is cautioning the ICC to be sober in their doings and listen to the will of the people so that progress can be made.
“Sometimes I get the feeling that the ICC is acting as if it’s the almighty priest of the church court of the international criminal justice and that priest is not sufficient in listening to the church members that are having doubt about the gospel that is been preached in that church or that are critical about the way the church is run. It is a task of the ICC, I believe to keep all members of the church on-board and not to kick them out if you don’t listen you will lose the members in the end the church might not have a future.
So I’m just calling on everybody to say whatever you want to say pro or against its own dialogue a progress can be made,” He said.
