(UPDATED) The International Criminal Court (ICC) has rejected an application by former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte to disqualify two judges hearing the jurisdiction issue in his case before the Hague-based tribunal.

In a decision dated June 9, 2025 signed by Judge Tomoko Akane, the court said its plenary of judges recieved an application filed by Duterte requesting that Judge Alapini-Gansou and Judge Flores be disqualified from adjudicating the "Defence Challenge with Respect to Jurisdiction". 

The defense challenge was submitted to the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I.

"A plenary of judges was convened on 9 June 2025 in order to consider the Application. The plenary of judges, acting unanimously, decided to reject the Application," the ICC decision said.

It added that a full decision of the plenary will be later released.

Duterte was arrested on March 11  on his arrival from Hong Kong at the request of the ICC as part of its probe into his "war on drugs" that defined his presidency.

The ICC warrant for Duterte's arrest said that as Davao City mayor and later Philippine president, the 80-year-old Duterte allegedly created, funded, and armed death squads that carried out murders of purported drug users and dealers.

He was brought to The Hague in the Netherlands on the same day he was arrested.

Duterte on March 14 appeared via video link before ICC judges. He is set to attend a September 25 hearing to confirm the charges against him. 

RQUEST FOR DISQUALIFICATION

In the corrigendum (correction) to the request for the disqualification of judges Alapini-Gansou and Liera, Duterte's lawyer Nicholas Kaufman asked the presidency to disqualify the two judges regarding the challenge to the jurisdiction of the court over Duterte.

Kaufman noted in the corrigendum dated May 12, 2025 that the challenged judges were the ones who authorized the commencement of the investigation.

The authorization was based on the finding that the ICC retains jurisdiction over the Philippines because the alleged crimes against humanity committed by Duterte occurred from November 2011 up to March 16, 2019, before the withdrawal of the Philippines from the Rome Statute took effect on March 17, 2019.

“It is not reasonable to expect a judge who has recently expressed a highly publicized position on a specific legal issue to depart from that view,” Kaufman said.

PROSECUTION'S RESPONSE

In its response dated May 22, ICC deputy prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang, representing the Office of the Prosecutor, rejected the Duterte camp's request, citing 4 main arguments:

1) A high threshold must be satisfied to rebut the presumption of judicial impartiality

2) Judges regularly adjudicate the same, or similar, legal issues

3) Adjudicating on jurisdiction more than once is explicitly foreseen in the Statute

4) The Judges’ preliminary determinations on jurisdiction do not amount to perceived bias

The prosecution explained that 2 judges' earlier determinations were "preliminary in nature" and made "in the absence of any defense observations on the issue."

"The defense request should be rejected because it fails to call into question the presumption of impartiality attached to the Judges. Contrary to the Defense’s position, the Judges have not 'already predetermined the outcome of the jurisdictional dispute in [the Prosecution’s] favor'," the prosecution said.

"[T]he Judges’ prior ruling does not amount to any perceived bias in this case, and any conclusion to the contrary would result in the untenable situation where a judge may be barred from issuing decisions on the same legal issue more than once," it added. - with reports from Jauhn Etienne Villaruel and Adrian Ayalin, ABS-CBN News