• Julien Aubert, LR deputy, made a bill on Wednesday to strengthen animal protection in France.

  • One of the flagship measures would be to remove animals from the Common Civil Code, in order to create their own legal code.

  • An initiative that could turn into a false good idea.

“According to article 9 of the Civil Code of Animals, your Croquette cat does indeed have the right to sleep inside and cannot be badly housed outside”. Will this kind of jurisdiction exist soon? In any case, this is the wish of Julien Aubert, deputy for Les Républicains du Vaucluse, who unveiled on Wednesday a bill (PPL) for animal welfare. This text notably provides for removing animals from the Civil Code in order to create a specific legal code for their protection.

For the moment, the legal status of our animal friends can be found in article 515-14 of the Civil Code (human, therefore): "Animals are living beings endowed with sensitivity" not endowed with legal personality, according to the terms of the article.

However, there are only two legal statuses in French law: persons or goods.

Animals do not have the same recognition as humans, and subject to the laws that protect them, they are therefore by default placed among property, specifies Alice Di Concetto, a lawyer specializing in animal law.

A Civil Code, but for what?

Would a specific legal code then be the solution? Not sure. The lawyer recalls that what counts are the laws and their contents, no matter where they are. "An important step forward, for example, would be to ban animals from mutilating by cutting off their tails, horns or ears, as we see too often in farms. Whether this ban appears in the Civil Code or elsewhere has very little importance, ”argues the lawyer.

Even the status of property is not a real problem, she believes.

"There are goods which benefit from exorbitant protection in France, in particular public goods, better protected than certain people", continues Alice Di Concetto.

As for human rights, these are above all fundamental rights - the right to vote, the right of expression, the right to economic freedom - which remain, whatever may be said, of little relevance to Médor or Lapinou.

On the other hand, it is possible to turn to human rights in order to improve animal protection: “We could add rights to prohibit certain harmful practices: mass slaughter, industrial breeding…” suggests the expert.

Its credo is therefore simple: strengthen the protection of animals more than change their status.

Beware of symbolism

This is because the symbolism quickly finds its limits. The proof, precisely, with the Civil Code and this famous article 515-14 on the sensitivity of animals. A sentience recognized since 2014, celebrated at the time as a major advance for the rights of our 30 million friends. Only here, six years later, nothing has really changed. “It was a purely cosmetic reform, deplores Muriel Arnal, president and founder of the animal protection association One Voice. Animals continue to be treated as badly as before. "

Worse still, the president regrets this entry in the Civil Code: “It is sometimes better not to change at all than the false feeling of having advanced. Most people believed in real progress, which blocks further legal breakthroughs for years. Alice Di Concetto confirms: “These debates in the National Assembly on the sensitivity or not of animals are decoys. While we are talking about that, the bullfights, the intensive breeding, the force-feeding of ducks, the mutilations continue. "

Mistrust, therefore, when a specific legal code is evoked for animals.

Even if the idea is attractive, recognizes Muriel Arnal: “A true legal code, with protective laws, would of course be an excellent thing.

But we need to show more vigilance.

A specific legal code, yes, but only a legal code with relevant content and offering multiple advances.

"Because the fact of being sensitive or not, for the moment, the animals," that gives them a good leg ", smiles the founder of the association.

A good pun for laws deemed insufficient.

Planet

Animal suffering: Does organic farming guarantee more "well-being" for farm animals?

Society

Lyon: "Neither a call for a boycott, nor a ban", Grégory Doucet specifies his comments on foie gras

  • Planet

  • Animal cruelty

  • Animals

  • Animal protection

  • Justice

  • Society

  • 0 comment

  • 0 share

    • Share on Messenger

    • Share on Facebook

    • Share on twitter

    • Share on Flipboard

    • Share on Pinterest

    • Share on Linkedin

    • Send by Mail

  • To safeguard

  • A fault ?

  • To print