Live animals will continue to be legally defined as moveable objects, as parliament on December 11 rejected a Civil Code amendment sponsored by Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) that sought to redefine animals as living beings gifted with senses. SaS lawmakers stressed that the change was supposed to be more than cosmetic.
“It’s an essential change in practice,” Lucia Nicholsonová of SaS said in October, as quoted by the TASR newswire. “At the moment you can’t save the life or health of an animal if such an action would simultaneously lead to some more expensive thing being damaged. For instance, you cannot free a dog from an overheated car because you would need to break a window, and a window is more expensive than a dog. It’s absurd.”
The amendment was inspired by similar legislation introduced in the Czech Republic. “At the moment an animal is defined as an object,” SaS MP Martin Poliačik told TASR. “However, a dog isn’t a TV, washing machine or car; it’s a living, sensitive being that feels pain and sadness. Slovak legislation should take this into consideration.”
(Source: TASR)
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
