Witness Tempering Essay

2070 Words5 Pages

Witness tampering: A never-ending challenge to the International Criminal Court?

Introduction
Jeremy Bentham, an eminent philosopher and jurist, portrayed the significance of witnesses in criminal trials when he stated: “Witnesses are the eyes and the ears of Justice.” The term ‘witness’ is neither defined under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute) nor under the Rules of Procedure and Evidence (RPE) to the Rome Statute. Per Black’s Law dictionary, “witness is a person who has knowledge of an event and whose declaration under oath is received as evidence.” There are several types of witnesses who can testify before the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ones who have suffered harm (Crimes-based witnesses), …show more content…

Witness interference is the “act of the perpetrator to deter the witness from giving full evidence or in any way influencing the nature of the witness’s testimonial evidence.” The issue of witness interference is reflective in Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) strategic plan of 2016-2018 which states that almost all the cases brought before the ICC are confronted with witness tampering (the only case which had no public reference of witness interference is Al-Mahdi case, where the accused charged with the destruction of …show more content…

VWU has established two important initiatives. First, the Initial Response System (IRS) whose mandate is to provide services for the witnesses who appear before the Court. Second, the ICC protection programme (ICCPP) provides protection to witnesses based on the risk assessment. Though VWU looks like a comprehensive regime for witness protection, it has several short-comings. Firstly, being the time-consuming and cumbersome process of accepting witnesses into the ICCPP, which in turn leads to disclosure complications and delays. Secondly, the assessment of participation in the ICCPP can be triggered only by a referral of the prosecution, defence or legal representatives of the victims. Thirdly, VWU is hampered by the lack of resources. The budget resources for VWU in 2014 was only €11,587.8 thousand which is meagre when compared to the ICTY expenditure of $1,671,200 in the year 2000 to cover the travel and allowances of victims and witnesses.
- Relocation of witnesses
The relocation of witnesses, work of the special units within the Registry, helps in preventing the witness from being

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