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Trial Chamber of the ICC lifts stay of proceedings in the case against Thomas Lubanga

Today the International Criminal Court announced, that the Trial Chamber I lifted the stay of proceedings in the case “The Prosecutor v. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo” (we reported earlier). AP has the story; press release of the ICC is available here.

Today, Trial Chamber I decided to lift the stay of proceedings in the case of The Prosecutor v. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo that had been imposed on 13 June 2008. The judges provisionally suggested the date of Monday, 26 January 2009, for the commencement of the trial. The decision of the Chamber is based on the conviction that the reasons for imposing a halt “have fallen away”. The full reasoning will be explained in a written decision in due course.

It will be interesting indeed to see what solution the prosecutor and the Trial Chamber were able to reach regarding the underlying problem of the disclosure of evidence. Will the evidence be disclosed to the judges of the Court only, or will the defence be able to see the material? Will all the confidential material be disclosed or just parts of it?

Addendum: The first information on what caused the Trial Chamber to lift the stay of proceedings has now been leaked (see this post on Professor Schabas’ blog). Apparently, the “prosecution has made a complete turn-around and agreed to make all the confidential information available, seemingly without restriction, to both the Chamber and the defence”. Still I wonder what caused the Prosecutor to make this turn-around. I guess we will know more once the Trial Chamber has issued the full reasoning in its upcoming written decision.

4 Comments

  1. Jernej Letnar Jernej Letnar 19 November 2008

    What follows from yesterday’s decision is that the Office of Prosecutor is now willing and obliged to disclose all evidence without restrictions to Lubanga’s defence team later this week. The Trial Chamber I has already examined the material. Such development can only be welcomed.

  2. Dominik Zimmermann Dominik Zimmermann 19 November 2008

    Indeed it seems as if the Prosecutor made a complete turn-around and is now ready to disclose all the material to not only the court but also the defence (see http://humanrightsdoctorate.blogspot.com/2008/11/lubanga-trial-will-start-in-january.html). I wonder what caused this turn-around not only by the Prosecutor but also (and in particular) by the information providers, most prominently the UN. Is it perhaps even possible that the Prosecutor will disclose the evidence without the consent of the information providers? I’m certainly looking forward to the full decision of the Trial Chamber…

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