Swiss voters reject lawyers for animals in referendum
Swiss voters have overwhelmingly rejected a controversial plan to appoint lawyers for animals.
By Alexandra Williams in Geneva
Published: 12:33AM GMT 08 Mar 2010
All of the 26 Swiss cantons on Sunday voted against the proposal by animal rights activists to extend nationwide a system already in place in Zurich.
Overall, just 29.5 per cent of voters were in favour. In seven cantons the "No" vote was more than 80 per cent.
The Alpine country already has among the most stringent animal rights laws in the world.
It recently changed its constitution to protect the "dignity" of plant life and made a law last year establishing rights for creatures such as goldfish and canaries. Pigs, budgies and other social creatures cannot be kept alone; horses and cows must be regularly exercised outside their stalls and dog owners are required to take a training course to learn how to properly care for their pets.
If citizens had voted for the initiative, each canton would have appointed a lawyer to act on behalf of animals at taxpayers' expense. Read More
Last week I shared with you that this vote was taking place. I’m happy to share with you that the attempt to give legal standing to animals in Switzerland failed miserably.
Showing posts with label animal standing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label animal standing. Show all posts
Monday, March 8, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Giving Human Rights to Animals In Court
National Review: Easy Boy, Your Dog Might Sue
by Wesley J. Smith
March 3, 2010
Should animals, like indigent criminal defendants, be provided with legal representation by the state? It could happen. As Time has reported, on March 7, voters in Switzerland will decide whether to give “domestic creatures . . . the constitutional right to be represented by (human) lawyers in court.”
What? Treating animals at law as if they were human? Don’t laugh. Lest we be tempted to dismiss the referendum as just the latest European post-modernistic folly, the effort to open our own courtrooms to animals is quietly advancing. Indeed, “animal standing,” as the issue is usually called, is at the very top of the animal-rights movement’s policy wish list.
But animals suing? For most people, the very idea is a surreal fantasy out of a Far Side cartoon. But from the viewpoint of animal-rights ideologues, nothing could be more logical. The dogma of animal liberation demands the obliteration of all animal industries and, eventually, the eradication by attrition of all domesticated animals. As Wayne Pacelle stated in 1993 before being appointed to his current post as head of the Humane Society of the United States, “One generation and out. We have no problem with the extinction of domestic animals. They are the product of human selective breeding.”
What could further the eradication goal more dramatically than allowing domesticated animals to sue their owners in court? The real litigants, of course, would be animal-rights activists — committed true believers who would use the raw power of litigation to force animal industries to their knees. Imagine the chaos: hundreds of animal lawyers, filing thousands of lawsuits, leading to hundreds of thousands of depositions, forcing industries to spend tens of millions of dollars on lawyers and legal costs defending their husbandry. No animal industry would be safe, and many would not survive. Read More
Giving animals legal standing in our courts is laughable and very scary. No one knows what an animal is thinking. For humans to represent animals in a court of law, which is based on rights granted to us by our creator, and claim to know what it wants is making a mockery of an incredible institution. With rights comes responsibility as well. So if human rights are going to be granted to animals, they must also bear human responsibility.
by Wesley J. Smith
March 3, 2010
Should animals, like indigent criminal defendants, be provided with legal representation by the state? It could happen. As Time has reported, on March 7, voters in Switzerland will decide whether to give “domestic creatures . . . the constitutional right to be represented by (human) lawyers in court.”
What? Treating animals at law as if they were human? Don’t laugh. Lest we be tempted to dismiss the referendum as just the latest European post-modernistic folly, the effort to open our own courtrooms to animals is quietly advancing. Indeed, “animal standing,” as the issue is usually called, is at the very top of the animal-rights movement’s policy wish list.
But animals suing? For most people, the very idea is a surreal fantasy out of a Far Side cartoon. But from the viewpoint of animal-rights ideologues, nothing could be more logical. The dogma of animal liberation demands the obliteration of all animal industries and, eventually, the eradication by attrition of all domesticated animals. As Wayne Pacelle stated in 1993 before being appointed to his current post as head of the Humane Society of the United States, “One generation and out. We have no problem with the extinction of domestic animals. They are the product of human selective breeding.”
What could further the eradication goal more dramatically than allowing domesticated animals to sue their owners in court? The real litigants, of course, would be animal-rights activists — committed true believers who would use the raw power of litigation to force animal industries to their knees. Imagine the chaos: hundreds of animal lawyers, filing thousands of lawsuits, leading to hundreds of thousands of depositions, forcing industries to spend tens of millions of dollars on lawyers and legal costs defending their husbandry. No animal industry would be safe, and many would not survive. Read More
Giving animals legal standing in our courts is laughable and very scary. No one knows what an animal is thinking. For humans to represent animals in a court of law, which is based on rights granted to us by our creator, and claim to know what it wants is making a mockery of an incredible institution. With rights comes responsibility as well. So if human rights are going to be granted to animals, they must also bear human responsibility.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)