South Africa issued a blanket diplomatic immunity to all leaders of the BRICS group, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, ahead of the bloc's summit in Johannesburg in August.
Officials insisted the immunity, initially issued in a government gazette, may not trump the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in March over the alleged forcible deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.
A two-day planning meeting by BRICS foreign ministers is due to take place on Thursday.
According to the South African Department of Foreign Affairs, the immunity granted to Putin was "a standard conferment...[done] for all international conferences and summits held in South Africa, irrespective of the level of participation."
"The immunities are for the conference and not for specific individuals," the statement added. "They are meant to protect the conference and its attendees from the jurisdiction of the host country for the duration of the conference."
Looking for Loopholes
It was reported in April that South African president Cyril Ramaphosa appointed deputy president Paul Mashatile to head an inter-ministerial committee to find out how to provide Putin with immunity by looking into the wording of Article 98 of the ICC Rome Statute for a loophole enabling him to attend without getting arrested by the host country.
South Africa is a member of the ICC.
There was a precedent for such a loophole as South Africa attempted to host the then-Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir in 2015.
The Kremlin has yet to announce whether Putin will attend the BRICS summit in person or not. However, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has been slated to attend the planning meeting this week.
Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia is counting on South Africa and its partner countries to not be guided by what he saw as "illegal decisions."
"Russia will be duly represented," he said.
BRICS is an economic bloc that consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa and is increasingly seen as a rival to the G7 group of Western industrialized countries.
In recent months, South Africa has been accused of remaining neutral over the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The United States also claimed the country had sent weapons to Russia to augment or compensate for its losses in its war on the Donbas.
South African Opposition Seeks to Arrest Putin
South Africa's opposition party, Democratic Alliance (DA), said Tuesday they had taken legal action to force the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party to have Putin arrested if he were to attend the BRICS summit in August.
In a statement, shadow justice minister Glynnis Breytenbach said DA had launched a court application to ensure the government would detain Putin and have him handed over to the ICC in the event he "set foot in South Africa."
"This pre-emptory court action aims to ensure that South Africa upholds its obligations," she said.
Breytenbach added the party was seeking a "declaratory order" to avoid repeating the country's failure to arrest al-Bashir in 2015.
Meanwhile, justice minister Ronald Lamola said the government would "explore various options" on how to interpret Article 98 and other provisions of the Rome Statute.
ZA rand drops to record low
In response to South Africa's decision to provide diplomatic immunity to Putin, the South African rand slumped to its lowest rate against the US dollar.
As of Tuesday, the rand's value dropped by 1% to ZAR 19.87 per dollar, second only to the sharp decline of the Argentine peso.
InTouch Capital Markets head of currency analysis Robert Hoodless said the rand market trades "with a sense of inevitability about currency weakness."
"[Foreign exchange] hedging has become a more sensitive subject, with many now simply looking for safety," he said.
