International Court rejects investigation against Vatican
14 June, 2013 - The International Criminal Court has rejected a longshot request
by clergy sex abuse victims to investigate Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Vatican
cardinals for possible crimes against humanity. The tribunal, based in The Hague,
told attorneys for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests that ``there is
not a basis at this time to proceed with further analysis.'' ``The matters described
in your communication do not appear to fall within the jurisdiction of the court,''
a court official wrote in a May 31 letter to the Center for Constitutional Rights,
the nonprofit legal group that represents the victims. The legal organization released
the letter on Thursday. Jeffrey Lena, the U.S. attorney for the Vatican, had called
the 2011 request to the court a ``ludicrous publicity stunt.'' ``The common thread
running through all these cases is the mistaken idea that `everything is controlled
by Rome,''' Lena said Thursday. Pam Spees, senior staff attorney for the Center for
Constitutional Rights, said her group was confident it could collect enough evidence
as new abuse victims come forward to press the tribunal to reconsider. The odds against
the court opening an investigation have been enormous. The prosecutor has received
more than 9,700 independent proposals for inquiries since 2002, when the court was
created as the world's only permanent war crimes tribunal, and has never opened a
formal investigation based solely on such a request. Attorneys for the victims had
argued the global church maintained a ``long-standing and pervasive system of sexual
violence'' despite promises to swiftly oust predators. The Survivors Network argued
that rape, sexual violence and torture are considered crimes against humanity as described
in the international treaty that spells out the court's mandate. The complaint also
accuses Benedict and Vatican officials of creating policies that perpetuated the damage,
constituting an attack against a civilian population. But the court wrote in its
letter to victims' attorneys that it can only investigate crimes committed after the
tribunal was formed and can only examine ``the most serious crimes of concern to the
international community as a whole, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war
crimes.'' “`It appears that some of these preconditions are not satisfied with respect
to the conduct described,'' the court wrote. ``Some of the allegations described in
your communication do not appear to fall within the court's temporal jurisdiction,
and other allegations do not appear to fall within the court's subject-matter jurisdiction.''