ICC amends e-court protocol ahead of Duterte trial

The International Criminal Court is investigating killings linked to former president Rodrigo Duterte's anti-drug campaign, which rights groups say left thousands dead.

Philstar.com / illustration

MANILA, Philippines — Less than two months before the start of the crimes against humanity trial of former president Rodrigo Duterte, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has amended its protocol for digital evidence and other information on witnesses and victims.

The ICC Registry, which is in charge of the administrative aspects of the court, submitted last week the amended E-Court Protocol that will be used during Duterte’s trial.

“This Protocol defines the standards according to which the participants should prepare and provide evidence, potential evidence and material in electronic form with the Court,” read the document submitted to the ICC Trial Chamber III.

“Furthermore, this Protocol defines metadata which should accompany the materials submitted. These standards are designed to minimize the document management and technology costs to the participants and the Court and to allow for the efficient management of proceedings,” it added.

Trial judges earlier directed the ICC Registry to submit the amended E-Court Protocol after it granted the prosecution’s request to add a URL (uniform resource locator) metadata field for each of the open source or user-generated evidence submitted in the case.

The prosecution said the additional field will allow parties to easily identify the URL or link “associated with the open source evidence at the time it was captured.”

The judges, however, denied the defense’s request for an additional “expert verification” field to accompany all forms of open source and user-generated evidence.

“The (defense’s) requested amendment, if implemented, requires the Prosecution to prepare additional materials that contain information regarding the relevance and admissibility of open-source and user-generated evidence, before the Defense analyses evidence and raises any abovementioned issues,” read the Sept. 26 decision.

Defense lawyer Peter Haynes argued that there is a need for extra caution to ensure that evidence is properly verified before it is submitted to the court.

But the ICC prosecutor said adding a separate expert verification field is “unreasonable, unnecessary and against the interests of judicial efficiency.”