Ban's UN Refuses Summons in Bertucci Case, of Contempt and Rule of Law

UNITED NATIONS, March 11 -- After UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has taken credit for the UN's new internal justice system, his administration has begun refusing to comply with and reflexively appealing orders, show as one judge puts it "contempt."

As the longstanding Bertucci v. United Nations case comes to a head, Judge Adams ruled that the UN

"is ordered within twenty-four hours to supply the name and contact details of the officer who made the decision to disobey theorder made by the Tribunal to produce the documents identified in the Tribunal's ruling in Bertucci."

On March 9 he ordered that the UN official who ordered non-compliance with a previous order of his in the case should appear before him at 10 a.m. on March 10.

Half an hour before that, the Secretary General's representative informed Judge Adams that the summoned official would not, in fact, appear. As reflected by the order just issued, further inquiry by Judge Adams led to the conclusion that the UN's lawyer before him either did not or could not find out who the official was, after asking the "bosses."

UN's Ban and his lawyer Patricia O'Brien: neither takes questions

Judge Adams' order reiterates

"the refusal to obey the Tribunal's Order is a brazen attack upon the rule of law embodied in the Tribunal and cannot be disregarded. In other jurisdictions, serious personal penalties would apply to officials who willfully disobeyed the order of a court. That sanction is not. available to the Tribunal except through misconduct proceedings. It follows therefore that the Tribunal must use other means of enforcing the jurisdiction which has been entrusted to it by the General Assembly under the Charter and pursuant to its Statute."

As Inner City Press previously exclusively reported, the Ban Ki-moon administration also refused to produce Under Secretary General Shaaban Shaaban when summoned by Judge Adams. When Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesman about the case, the response was that the orders would be appealed, and that no basis for appeal needed to be states. And this is the rule of law?