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The Animal: A Subject of Law? A Reflection on Aspects of the Austrian and German Juridical Systems

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Abstract

In recent years there has been a marked increase in interest in animal welfare issues worldwide. This subject often evokes extreme points of view, and can be both intellectually challenging and emotionally dividing. It is undeniably a field where substantial progress has taken place, with a multitude of countries worldwide implementing their own animal welfare and protection laws. However, calls continue to be voiced for more extensive and courageous measures to be taken concerning both the content and the enforcement of animal welfare legislation. To highlight a variety of these promising and noteworthy ideas this article outlines and examines some selected and qualified aspects of a potential juridical approach to the subject by consulting the legal systems of Austria and Germany under this particular premise. The aim will be to ascertain the extent to which animals have been granted consideration and protection, for instance in spheres of Constitutional or Civil Law. What options exist to safeguard an animal by a legally founded and secured position, and on which rank in the legal system could such provisions possibly be established? Ideally, a complete legal network on all possible levels of the legal system should be developed, ensuring a comprehensive and an all-embracing protection of the individual animal.

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Notes

  1. The term ‘fellow-being’ (‘Mitgeschöpf’) respectively: ‘fellow-beingness’ (‘Mitgeschöpflichkeit’) has been coined in 1959 by Zurich’s theologian Fritz Blanke to „connect the traditional term of humanity [‘Mitmenschlichkeit’] with the comprehensive context of the creation“ [34, Introduction pt. I. (2)].*

  2. The utilitarian endeavours to: “Maximize pleasure and minimize suffering” [49, p. 108].

  3. „The principle [of equal treatment] consists of two mutually dependent and complementing statements: the precept to equal treatment in the case of equality and of dissimilar treatment in the case of dissimilarity” [57, p. 77].*

  4. Reichstierschutzgesetz.

  5. Strafrechtsänderungsgesetz von 1971 (StRÄG 1971).

  6. Strafgesetz (StG) = previous Criminal Code of Austria.

  7. “This way the demerits of animal cruelty should, at least in qualified cases by aggravating of the sanctions, be covered and a federal uniform treatment of this criminal offence guaranteed” [47, § 222 StGB Ref. 2].* As until then the punishment was predominantly subjected to the administrative penal authorities.

  8. Bundesverfassungsgesetz (B-VG) = Austrian Federal Constitution [3].

  9. Which “centers on the avoidance of any disturbance of the moral feeling which might be aroused by watching and experiencing acts of animal cruelty…” [43, Ref. 21].*

  10. Strafgesetzbuch (StGB) = Criminal Code of Germany [15].

  11. See also §§ 1 and 17 Nr. 1 TierSchG (Tierschutzgesetz = Animal Protection Act of Germany) [16].

  12. “… if the animal shall be protected on account of itself because, irrespective of the human interest in its exploitation, it is bearer of an inherent value then this value has to also be awarded to its life” [43, Ref. 18].*

  13. Adopted with abridgements from [43, Ref. 18].* There these values are listed at the example of the German Animal Protection Act.

  14. See § 3 Section 1 TSchG (Tierschutzgesetz = Bundesgesetz über den Schutz der Tiere, Austria’s Federal Act on the Protection of Animals) [4].

  15. See § 1 TSchG [4] as well as § 1 Clause 1 TierSchG [16]. The animal as ‘fellow-being’ means “the inclusion of the animals in the precepts of humanity, compassion and justice as well as recognition of their dignity as a creature” [43, Ref. 18].*

  16. [16]: „ohne einen vernünftigen Grund“. See also § 5 Section 1 TSchG [4]: „ungerechtfertigt“ = unjustified.

  17. For details see also [43, § 1 TierSchG Ref. 49–53].

  18. As member states of the EU, both Austria and Germany are obliged to implement European Community law domestically. The federal animal protection legislation of both countries has already been aligned according to the EU law and its requirements thus ensuring conformity in this field. Besides, Austria and Germany acceded to the Council of Europe’s European Conventions for the Protection of Animals [26] and both joined the treaties for animals during international transport, for animals for farming purposes and for pet animals; and Germany only also: for slaughter and animal research and experimentation.

  19. Strafgesetzbuch (StGB) = Criminal Code of Austria [7].

  20. The comment is still listed to § 38 Section 6 instead of today’s actual Section 7 TSchG as initially the paragraph only consisted of six sections.

  21. Allgemeines Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch = General Civil Code of Austria [2].

  22. Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch = German Civil Code [9].

  23. Costs of curative treatment in relation to animals are defined identically to those for humans [27, § 1332 a ABGB Ref. 3] and “… are expenses which have been caused by a bodily injury and have been made with regard to the usual expenses which would have been required without the accident in the intention to eliminate the health damages of the accident or at least to improve them” [31, § 1325 ABGB, p. 626],*

  24. § 1332 a ABGB is rated restrictively inasmuch as it only benefits the pet animal but not the farm animal. According to Austrian jurisdiction, farm animals with [supposedly] no emotional bond to the animal keeper shall exclusively be referred to § 1323 ABGB, i.e. restitution in kind or compensation in money of the costs of the curative treatment up to the limit of the corresponding market or replacement value of the individual animal [27, § 1332 a ABGB Ref. 2].

    In Germany on the other hand § 251 (2) Clause 2 BGB also refers to farm animals and assessing the extent of the recoverable costs of curative treatments requires—just as with pet animals—an additional balancing of facts like age, state of health as well as the existence and intensity of an emotional relationship to the owner [41, § 251 BGB Ref. 8].

  25. To complete the picture concerning the law of compensation at this point the liability for animals as per § 1320 ABGB and § 833 f. BGB should also be mentioned which obliges the animal owner to pay compensation if damage was caused by an animal in his sphere of responsibility, as well as the liability and warranty for defects under §§ 924 ff. and 932 f. ABGB and §§ 433, 434 ff. and § 476 BGB respectively.

  26. This means that also an animal owner’s claim for its return could be an abuse of legal rights when the animal thus would be exposed to imminent danger and the previously extended lawful assistance in need would therefore be so to say thwarted [46, Ref. 135–136].

  27. Only to name a few further examples, i.e. § 295 ABGB—game as appurtenance of property; § 383 ABGB and § 960 (1) Clause 1 BGB—appropriation through owner of hunting rights; § 405 ABGB and § 99 (1) BGB and § 953 BGB—fruits of a thing; as well as the rules and problems regarding lost property: § 388 (1) ABGB and § 965 (1) BGB; and willful abandoning: § 444 and 349 ABGB or § 959 BGB, respectively.

  28. In Austria: § 81 Section 2 EheG (Marriage Act). In Germany: § 1 Section 1 HausratsVO (Decree on Household Effects) and § 8 HausratsVO.

  29. § 85 EheG (Austria) and § 1 Section 1 HausratsVO (Germany).

  30. § 12 f. TSchG [4] and § 2 TierSchG [16] respectively. [See also 43, Ref. 66].

  31. Abgabenexekutionsordnung (AbgEO) = Fiscal Execution Code of Austria [1].

  32. Zivilprozessordnung (ZPO) = Code of Civil Procedure in Germany [18].

  33. Furthermore pets in a more narrow sense are or can be subjected to the exemption of seizure. In Austria see § 250 Section 1 No. 4 EO = Exekutionsordnung (Execution Rules) [5] and in Germany according to § 811 c ZPO.

  34. § 16 ABGB (Austria) and § 1 BGB (Germany).

  35. “Based on the principle of personal dignity every creature that has interests, so every person, is entitled to the respect of its interests. This entitlement is the right of the person. Every person thus is a subject of rights because it [the person] is in its term a subject of interests” (Cited according to 25, 149].*

  36. Austria recently achieved international press coverage with the court case of ‘Hiasl’, a chimpanzee. In 2006, somebody donated a “sum of money to the president of the animal rights association VGT under the condition that he may only take possession of it if Hiasl has been appointed a legal guardian, who can receive this money …” [19] on Hiasl’s behalf. VTG stands for ‘Verein gegen Tierfabriken’ = ‘Association against Animal Factories’. Subsequently an application by the president of the VGT was made at a district court in Lower Austria to appoint for Matthias ‘Hiasl’ Pan a legal guardian. This would presuppose ‘Hiasl’ would be recognized as a ‘person’—as otherwise no guardianship could be granted. The court of first instance reasoned that formal prerequisites were not fulfilled. In the meantime after going through all stages of appeal in Austria with no avail (as no decision was made in the causa itself due to the lack of the right to appeal for the president of the VGT at the court of resort), the case is now pending at the European Court of Human Rights. For further reading: [19; 20, 335–342; 28–30].

  37. Article 120 Bundesverfassung (BV) der Schweiz = Switzerland Constitution [24].

  38. Article 3 Section a. TSchG (Tierschutzgesetz, Swiss Animal Protection Act)* [58].

    Disregard therefore constitutes an offence of cruelty to animals as per Article 26 Section a. TSchG irrespective of the animal experiencing any pain, suffering, damage or not. Still this does not comprise a total prohibition of any incrimination per se as here also a balancing of interests has to take place. However, defining the term ‘dignity of the creature’ in more detail will remain a task for the Swiss courts eventually. [23, p. 44].

  39. Grundgesetz (GG) = Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany [13, 14].

    Wording of Article 20 a GG: “Mindful also of its responsibility toward future generations, the state shall protect the natural bases of life and the animals by legislation and, in accordance with law and justice, by executive and juridical action, all within the framework of the constitutional order.” [14; Quote adapted to the new version of the GG as of 2002].*

  40. “Including animal protection as a state objective takes into account the need of a morally responsible treatment of the animal by the human. The capability to suffer and to feel, especially of higher developed animals, demands an ethical minimum in regard to human conduct. The duty to respect animals in their fellow-beingness and to spare them avoidable suffering follows from that. […] Establishing animal protection in the constitution shall strengthen simple legal statutes on animal protection and guarantee the effectiveness of animal protective provisions. […] The jurisdiction can only accomplish this adequately if the legislator included the protection of animals explicitly into the structure of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany. This serves legal security. By adding the words ‘and the animals’ in Article 20 a GG the mandate to protect also applies to the individual animal. Ethical animal protection is thus conferred constitutional rank” [11, p. 3 in excerpts].*

  41. In March 1996 a petition for a referendum strived to elevate the protection of animals to constitutional status [46, Ref. 36].

    Then in 2004 the constitutional convention (Verfassungskonvent) made a suggestion relating the incorporation of animal protection as a state objective into Article 10 B-VG. But ultimately this phrasing was not adopted for the wording of the draft [6].

  42. “Not only a ‘too much’ of animal protection but also a ‘too little’ has to be accessible to a juridical review if the mandate of the state objective to protect and control shall be performed effectively” [43, Article 20 a GG, Ref. 18].*

  43. §§ 58–61 Bundesnaturschutzgesetz (BnatSchG) = Federal Nature Conservation Act of Germany.

  44. Verwaltungsgerichtsordnung (VWGO) = Rules of the Administrative Courts of Germany [17].

  45. The decisive factor between both options is that in the concept of the ‘pure model of a representative’, the involved animal is itself the plaintiff and only represented by an agent. On the other hand, in the ‘statutory assignment of the right in action’, the animal welfare organization itself is a party of the litigation. It “prosecutes an action for the benefit of a third party whereby the concerned animals are exclusively favoured” [25, p. 521].*

  46. In Austria a petition for a referendum was held back in 1996 which unsuccessfully called for the creation of an independent animal welfare lawyer’s office [46, Ref. 36].

  47. I.e. all humans as well as all mammals. “We are not ‘higher’ or ‘superior’; they are not ‘lower’ and ‘inferior’. In terms of our morally significant, our inherent, value, we are their equals, and they are ours” [52, p. 94; see also 60, p. 39].

  48. “The liberation of the weak, oppressed and marginalized can not only refer to the black, slaves or women. It stands as it were for the suffering creature in general: The faculty of sensation thus turns into the uniting central opposition category against any form of discrimination” [25, p. 113].*

  49. “In view of the fact that we (and presumably all other cultural respectively legal orders) kill animals, eat them with pleasure or process them to clothing, § 285 a [ABGB] can not be more than juridical cosmetics” [45, § 285 a ABGB Ref. 1].*

  50. Just as the title of the German draft law of 1990 [10] itself reads: ‘Official Statement of Reasons for the Draft of a Law for the Improvement of the Legal Status of the Animal within the Civil Law’.*

  51. “Such recognition of the capacity of the animal to be a legal personality would have to be procedurally secured and combined with man’s duty to exercise the rights of the animal as a representative on its behalf and on a trust basis” [10, p. 6].*

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Acknowledgments

I like to express my sincerest gratitude to Prof. Dr. Michael Geistlinger of the Faculty of Law at the Paris-Lodron-University Salzburg, Austria, for his continuous support and encouragement. At the same time I also wish to thank Janice Cox, former International Legislative Adviser of the World Society for the Protection of Animals and Co-founder and Director of World Animal Net, profoundly. It was most fortunate as well as a great honour for me to receive her invaluable co-operation in counterchecking and revising this article with the final perfecting touches of her academic and linguistic expertise.

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  1. Faculty of Law, Paris-Lodron-University Salzburg, Churfürststrasse 1, 5020, Salzburg, Austria

    Sabine Lennkh

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Correspondence to Sabine Lennkh.

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Some documents and quotes have been rendered by the author from German into English. Those are marked with an asterisk (*).

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Lennkh, S. The Animal: A Subject of Law? A Reflection on Aspects of the Austrian and German Juridical Systems. Int J Semiot Law 24, 307–329 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-010-9183-8

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