"defer the case" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
It is commonly used in legal contexts to mean to delay a case or postpone the trial date. For example: After considering the submitted evidence, the court decided to defer the case to a later date.
"Today's government application is mischief by the government, as it wants to defer the case," Mr. Zafar said.
The Security Council yesterday refused to back an African Union motion to defer the case which, had it passed, might have marked the 11-year-old court's death sentence.
Mendez Ortega's lawyer, assistant public defender Michael C. Cash, asked the judge to defer the case and not enter a conviction or sentence in light of the defendant's actions and the jury's response.
"When viewed against the lack of due process afforded to Mr Gaddafi, and the general backdrop of credible reports concerning allegations of torture and mistreatment of detainees, there is no basis for asserting that the ICC should defer the case to Libya," says the report.
The Kenyan government's attempt to defer the cases at the ICC by appealing to members of the UN Security Council failed without being voted on, however the government, represented by British lawyers Geoffrey Nice and Rodney Dixon, have subsequently applied directly to the Court.
The Security Council first discussed sanctions, then last year the possibility of deferring the case against Mr Bashir.
The appeals court was expected to hear arguments in that case this spring, but deferred the case until next fall.
The other, more plausible, is that he will himself at last mend his ways, in return for the Security Council deferring the case.
Deferring the case against President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan for crimes against humanity would establish a catastrophic precedent whereby politics dictates the course of justice.
His deputy, William Ruto, is already in the dock in a separate but related case, the conduct of which may have persuaded some Kenyans that the ICC is not biased against Africans.Meanwhile, Kenya's diplomatic manoeuvres have seen the country shift from its usual pro-Western orbit towards China, which voted in favour of deferring the case.
