DA welcomes judgement to make public SA’s obligation to arrest Vladimir Putin
18 July 2023
The Democratic Alliance welcomes a judgement handed down by the Gauteng High Court today, which ruled that the government of the Republic of South Africa, in accordance with the Rome Statute to which it is signatory, must publicly and transparently argue its case around South Africa’s obligation to arrest Russian President, Vladimir Putin, following the issuance of an arrest warrant for Mr Putin by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes.
It is clear that the South African government is making every attempt to obfuscate and cover up this pivotal matter to avoid public scrutiny, and to mask its inability to stand up to war mongers and despots like Vladimir Putin, as should be expected from any human rights-based foreign policy.
Given the farcical nature of President Ramaphosa’s responding affidavit, it is little wonder that he did not want it to see the light of day.
Deploying flimsy arguments which allege that the Russian Federation would declare war on South African should we arrest Vladimir Putin, are little more than strawman arguments when the Constitutional principle and both domestic and international law make the merits of this case crystal clear.