Fit for Trial, on Terms

On Thursday 8 October, Trial Chamber III of the International Criminal Court made public a decision, dated 28 September, in which it found that Rodrigo Duterte is fit to stand trial, the court announced. The former Philippine president is charged with crimes against humanity of murder and attempted murder over killings carried out during his “war on drugs”. His trial is scheduled to open on 30 November.

“The Chamber was satisfied that the Accused is able to effectively exercise his fair trial rights in the proceedings,” the court said. Duterte, who is 81, denies the charges and faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if convicted, Al Jazeera reported.

The decision answers the question his defence has pressed since 2025. It leaves one practical question with the judges: how long a day in court he will sit through.

Decided twice

This is the second ICC chamber to rule that Duterte can take part in his case. On 8 September 2025, Pre-Trial Chamber I postponed the confirmation of charges hearing, which had been due to start on 23 September 2025, to rule on a defence request for an indefinite adjournment on the ground that he was not fit to participate. It appointed a panel of three medical experts, received their reports on 5 December 2025 and, on 26 January 2026, found him fit to take part in the pre-trial proceedings and rejected the request.

The confirmation hearing ran from 23 to 27 February 2026. On 23 April, Pre-Trial Chamber I unanimously confirmed all the charges, three counts of crimes against humanity, and committed him to trial. Trial Chamber III, made up of Presiding Judge Joanna Korner, Judge Keebong Paek and Judge Nicolas Guillou, set the opening date on 27 May.

The January finding covered only the pre-trial proceedings, and the question of fitness for trial went before the trial chamber. His lawyers had argued that he suffered from significant memory impairment that kept him from retaining recent information and reliably accessing memories, Rappler reported. The trial chamber appointed an independent panel of experts in June, according to VERA Files.

What the experts found

The Expert Panel unanimously found that Duterte has the capacity to understand the charges, to understand the purpose and consequences of the proceedings, to follow the course of the proceedings, including the nature and implications of entering a plea, to understand the evidence, and to instruct counsel in the preparation and conduct of his defence, the court said.

The chamber said it was mindful of the experts’ findings that he has some cognitive impairment, Rappler reported, but said that impairment was either “mild,” “incipient,” or “pre-clinical.” The chamber wrote: “In light of these considerations and the Expert Panel’s determination, following its examination of the Accused, the Chamber is satisfied that there is no support for the Defence’s contention that the nature of the Accused’s performance is due to severe medical conditions. It therefore rejects the Defence’s argument.”

According to VERA Files, the chamber also rejected defence requests for a further medical examination, for the chance to question the Expert Panel and for an initial oral hearing. It shared the panel’s observation of an “apparent improvement” in Duterte’s health, which VERA Files reported was attributed to the high standard of medical and nursing care he has received, including careful diagnosis and the rationalising of his medication.

The hours

The panel did not stop at capacity. VERA Files reported that it proposed special measures: over-ear headphones or hearing aids during hearings, care and support around food, rest and exercise, a break in the hearings each hour, no hearing starting earlier than 11:00, and a member of the nursing staff available during breaks to help with medication and care. The chamber took note of them.

On the length of the court day, the court’s announcement is exact about what the judges decided. “With respect to the scheduling of trial hearings, the Chamber noted the Expert Panel’s recommendations as well as relevant submissions and decided that it will assess sitting hours on a case-by-case basis depending on the individual circumstances of the witnesses and the accused,” it said.

The chamber also instructed the Registry that Duterte’s health be continuously monitored by the medical officer of the court’s detention centre, and that any change in his condition be passed to the judges immediately. The schedule and directions for the opening of the trial will be issued in due course, the court said.

The effect is that the bench, not the medical panel, holds the clock. A fixed rule of hourly breaks and late starts would have been a standing condition on every sitting. An assessment made case by case leaves the judges to decide the hours again according to the circumstances of each witness and the accused. That reading is this publication’s, drawn from the court’s description of the decision. The full decision was not available to this publication when this article was written.

The case

The crimes are alleged to have been committed in the Philippines between 1 November 2011 and 16 March 2019, the court said in January. Prosecutors say police and government hit squads carried out dozens of killings at Duterte’s orders, Al Jazeera reported. He says he only ordered police to act in self-defence. Estimates of the death toll in the anti-drug campaign during his presidency range from more than 6,000, the figure reported by the national police, to as many as 30,000 claimed by human rights groups.

He was arrested in the Philippines and surrendered to the court on 12 March 2025, the court has said. He became the first Asian former leader to be arrested by the ICC, according to Al Jazeera. He remains in detention at Scheveningen prison, VERA Files reported.

Sources

The fitness finding, the date of the decision, the panel’s unanimous findings, the scheduling decision, the monitoring order and the case history are from the ICC’s announcements of 8 October 2026, 27 May 2026 and 26 January 2026. The quoted passage on the defence’s argument, the defence’s description of his memory and the characterisation of his impairment are as Rappler reported them. The proposed special measures, the rejected defence requests, the appointment of the panel in June, the observation on his health and his place of detention are from VERA Files. Duterte’s age, his denial, the maximum sentence, the prosecution’s account, the death toll estimates and his arrest record are from Al Jazeera, drawing on AFP, AP and Reuters. The reading of the scheduling decision is this publication’s.