Executive has prerogative to withdraw from treaties, court hears
6 December 2016
Pretoria - The executive has the prerogative to withdraw from treaties and does not need Parliament’s approval to do so, the High Court in Pretoria heard on Tuesday.
"It's the executive that goes into it, it's the executive that goes out of it," Jeremy Gauntlett, for President Jacob Zuma, and the justice and international relations ministers, told the court.
"We say there is no Parliament in the world that we know that takes a decision to go into a treaty. It's the executive who conducts and concludes negotiations."
Gauntlett was arguing against the DA's challenge to the government’s decision to withdraw its ratification of the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC).