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ePaper created 2015-11-10, 17:27:36 | version 1.33.00
REDACTED Page 188 of 190 that an investigation will be open. The preliminary examination is intended to review plausible hypothesis, collect information and to assess at the end of such analysis if the “reasonable basis” standard prescribed by the Statute for the opening of an investigation is reached.838 The practice of the OTP and the Policy paper on Preliminary examinations clarify that this filtering process of the preliminary examination is carried out in a phased approach839 during which the OTP will conduct a “critical analysis and independent evaluation”840 of the information which is subject to review by the Court.841 It appears that part of this phased approach is an internal review of the information that is not publicized – so called Phase 1, and that the rest of the process – Phases 2, 3 and 4 are publicly conducted with the “formal commencement” of a preliminary examination situation being started at the end of the Phase 1 for the situations that constitute a plausible hypothesis. It is only “the [A]rticle 15 communications not rejected in Phase 1”842 that will to proceed to the Phase 2-analysis stage. The Policy paper on Preliminary examinations stipulates that the purpose of the Phase 1 is to “analyse and verify the seriousness of information received, filter out information on crimes that are outside the jurisdiction of the Court and identify those that appear to fall within the jurisdiction of the Court.”843 Other than excluding situations already being considered by the OTP in an existing preliminary examination in more advanced phases or in an ongoing investigation, the OTP seeks to use the process to distinguish between those communications which are “manifestly outside the jurisdiction of the Court” which will be rejected and those which constitute plausible hypothesis will proceed to Phase 2. It is therefore clear that the standard of review applied by the OTP at this stage of the process which is relevant to this particular communication is whether the information 838 Article 15 (3) of the Rome Statute. 839 OTP. (2013) Policy paper on Preliminary examination. Office of the Prosecutor (ICC). [Online] November. Available from: http://www.icc- cpi.int/en_menus/icc/press%20and%20media/press%20releases/Documents/OTP%20Preliminary% 20Examinations/OTP%20-%20Policy%20Paper%20Preliminary%20Examinations%20%202013.pdf [Accessed 27 October, 2015] p.17 840 OTP. (2013) Policy paper on Preliminary examination. p.18, para. 76. 841 OTP. (2015) ICC-01/13-34 (“Situation on Registered Vessels of the Union of the Comoros, the Hellenic Republic and the Kingdom of Cambodia, Decision on the request of the Union of the Comoros to review the Prosecutor's decision not to initiate an investigation”). Office of the Prosecutor (ICC). [Online] 16 July. Available from: http://www.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/doc/doc2015869.pdf [Accessed 27 October, 2015] 842 OTP. (2015) ICC-01/13-34. p.19, para. 80 843 OTP. (2015) ICC-01/13-34. p.18, para. 78