ARRESTING President Vladimir Putin would be a declaration of war with Russia, said President Cyril Ramaphosa.
“Russia has made it clear that the arrest of its incumbent president will be a declaration of war. It would be incompatible with our constitution to risk going to war with Russia,” said Ramaphosa in papers made public in the Gauteng High Court.
He was responding to the DA's efforts to get the court to force the South African government to arrest Putin when he comes for the BRICS Summit next month.
On Tuesday, 18 July, the high court handed down a judgment that government, in accordance with the Rome Statute to which it is signatory, must publicly and transparently argue its case around South Africa’s obligation to arrest the Russian president. This follows the issuing of an arrest warrant for Putin by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes.
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Ramaphosa's court statements were made public by the court on Tuesday despite him asking for them to be kept secret.
In the papers, he said it would be a reckless, unconstitutional and unlawful exercise of the powers conferred upon government to declare war with Russia by arresting Putin.
"It would be inconsistent with our Constitution to risk engaging in war with Russia. I have constitutional obligations to protect the national sovereignty, peace and security of the republic and to respect, protect, promote and fulfil the rights of the people of the republic to life, safety and security, among other rights in the Bill of Rights.”
DA leader John Steenhuisen said given the farcical nature of Ramaphosa’s responding affidavit, it was little wonder that the president did not want his "farcical" responding affidavit to see the light of day.
“Deploying flimsy arguments which allege that the Russian Federation would declare war on South African should we arrest Vladimir Putin are little more than strawman arguments when the Constitutional principle and both domestic and international law make the merits of this case crystal clear.
“What is comical about the president’s affidavit is his claim that refusing to arrest Vladimir Putin would disregard the sovereignty of the Russian Federation, when the South African government, in its support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, showed very little concern for the sovereignty of the Ukrainian State,” said Steenhuisen.
"The South African government is making every attempt to confuse and cover up this pivotal matter to avoid public scrutiny and to mask its inability to stand up to “war mongers” and “despots” like Putin."
