“You’re drawing me into a discussion about moving out of the ICC. I don’t want to be drawn into that. It’s a sovereign decision of South Africa. It was a sovereign decision to join and it’s their sovereign decision to go [withdraw],” Dlamini-Zuma addressed local and international reporters on the sidelines of the African Editors Forum.

At one point Dlamini-Zuma asked her staff in charge of the media to “request that I am here for the [African Union’s] Agenda 2063 and not for the ICC”.

Dlamini-Zuma said the African Union is not a member of the ICC and has no standing before the international court.

“As I am the chair of the AU Commission, I will not comment on that [South Africa’s withdrawal]. It’s a purely sovereign decision of each country to join or to pull out,” said Dlamini-Zuma.

“The only thing I can say is that countries must strengthen their judiciary. The ICC is a court of last instance. The first instance is the national courts. They must be strengthened so that they can indeed deal with situations that arise.”

She made reference to the conviction of former Chad’s ex-ruler, Hissene Habre, by a court in Senegal, emphasising that Africa was capable of dealing internally with human rights violators.

“The former president of Chad has been tried in an African court, agreed by the AU and funded by the AU. The judges were coming from Africa. He has been tried for atrocities in Chad and he was found guilty by an African court. Of course, now he is appealing his sentence,” said the South African former Cabinet minister.

“I’m saying the continent also has mechanisms of dealing with this, as we can see from the example of the former president of Chad.”

On Friday, Justice Minister Michael Masutha announced that the South African government has informed the United Nations of its intention to withdraw from the ICC.

“Written notice to withdraw from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court has been submitted to the Secretary-General of the United Nations in accordance with article 127(1) of the Rome Statute of the ICC,” Masutha told a media briefing in Pretoria.

“The withdrawal will take effect one year after the Secretary-General has received the notification.”

South Africa will remain obligated under the Roman Statute for the duration of the 12 months’ notice period.

Several civil society institutions and political parties have indicated that they will challenge the decision to withdraw SA from the ICC in court.

The withdrawal of South Africa from a court which it helped found, will come into effect from October 19, 2017.

ANA