The Supreme Court (SC) has officially released its resolution detailing the 9-5-1 decision to deny Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa’s plea for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against a potential arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The High Court ruled that the Senator failed to substantiate the “urgent need” for injunctive relief. According to the court, the mere possibility of harm is insufficient to warrant an intervention without proof of a concrete, violated right.
”The possibility of irreparable damage, without proof of an actual existing right, is not a ground for injunction,” the Court stated in its resolution.
Associate Justice Maria Filomena Singh, in a separate concurring opinion, emphasized that Dela Rosa’s request lacked the necessary legal requisites. She further pointed to the Senator’s recent behavior as evidence of bad faith.
”As a final note, the main issue in this case is accountability, under our Constitution, under our local laws, under the Rome Statute, under general principles of international law, as correctly framed by the parties,” Singh noted.
However, the ruling faced firm opposition from five dissenting justices: Amy Lazaro-Javier, Ramon Paul Hernando, Ricardo Rosario, Antonio Kho, Jr., and Henri Jean Paul Inting. Justice Japar Dimaampao was on leave during the vote.
Justice Lazaro-Javier warned that allowing the executive branch to facilitate an arrest for an international body without judicial oversight undermines the separation of powers.
”To capture a citizen and hand him over to an international body by executive fiat is to usurp the judiciary’s exclusive constitutional role and to erode the bedrock principle of separation of powers,” Lazaro-Javier argued.
She further stressed the irreversible nature of surrendering a citizen to foreign custody.
”Once surrendered, no writ of habeas corpus, no petition for certiorari, no mandamus, and no subsequent ruling of this Court – no matter how favorable – can retrieve him from foreign custody or restore the constitutional protections denied to him,” she added.
The decision marks a significant development in the ongoing legal discourse surrounding the Philippines’ relationship with the ICC and the extent of executive authority in international legal matters.