Posted on 05/23/2008 12:04:31 PM PDT by markomalley
Strausburg, May 23, 2008 / 02:49 am (CNA).- Animal rights advocates are appealing to the European Court of Human Rights to declare a 26-year-old chimpanzee named Matthew to be a legal person.
British teacher Paula Stibbe and activists with the Vienna-based Association Against Animal Factories want to declare Matthew a person so that Stibbe may be appointed his legal guardian if the bankrupt animal sanctuary where Matthew lives in Vienna shuts down, the Evening Standard says.
Matthew lives with another chimpanzee and a crocodile in an animal shelter. The shelter requires about $8,000 each month in expenses. While donors have sought to support Matthew, under Austrian law only humans may receive personal gifts.
Austrian law also limits legal guardianship to humans.
Austria’s Supreme Court has upheld a lower court ruling rejecting the activists’ request to have a trustee appointed for Matthew. The lower court ruled that the animal was neither mentally impaired nor in danger.
“Everybody who knows him personally will see him as a person,” said the 36-year-old Stibbe, who was born in England but lives in Vienna.
“In his home in the African jungle, he would have been well able to look after himself without a guardian. But since he was abducted into an alien environment, traumatized and locked up in an enclosure, it did become necessary for me to act on his behalf to secure the donation money for him and to avoid his deportation.”
“Since he has no close relatives, I am doing this as the person closest to him,” she said, according to the Evening Standard.
Matthew’s supporters argue that only legal personhood will ensure he is not sold to someone outside Austria, where he is protected by the country’s strict animal cruelty laws.
Eberhart Theuer, chief legal adviser for the Association Against Animal Factories, advocated on behalf of the chimpanzee, saying, “His life depends on this decision. This case is about the fundamental question: Who is the bearer of human rights? Who is a person according to the European Human Rights Charter?”
A spokesman for the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg said the application regarding the chimpanzee will first be considered by a magistrate and a lawyer before it is decided whether his cause deserves a full hearing.
What about the crocodile he lives with? Where are his rights?
“URPeans have long ago left the reservation...”
Shouldn’t that be “URPeons have long ago left the reservation...”
Just wondering.
I was starting to think the same thing, but I take great consolation from the fact that any human homo trying to butt-bang a chimp would probably be in serious need of multiple limb re-attachment surgery in very short order.
Watch that, that’s how Ceasar started the Ape revolution in Planet of the Apes.
On another thread was a photo of his “Guardian”, a very cute woman. Anyone have a photo? Then I can repeat the comment I made on that thread:
“Give me a girl/Just like the girl/That this chimpanzee has”
What a Great Ape she is!
Why not treat it as property? That’s what it is, just like a dog, cat, bird or goldfish.
Seems to me all that needs to be done is transfer ownership to the interested party.
Seems to me that a couple of minor tweaks to Austrian law re gifts and legal guardianship would be a more reasonable route to the petitioner's praiseworthy objective.
Marital rights will be next.
I wish they'd hurry up and do that. It would put us one step closer to getting government completely out of the marriage business.
Depends on the spelling.. whether you are just inaccurate or downright wrong..
Suppose that would be called crocadilifilia?
:)
Next, they’ll want to run for Congress. Oh, wait- never mind.
ROTFLMAO!
If your ex-wife marries an orangutan, who gets custody of the kids?
Why not? He’s probably smarter than most of the animal rights activists anyway.
And most Obama voters!
APE vs Fetus: Who will be concidered a person first?
They have it backwards!
Animal rights activists ahould be listed as animals.
Well, hit a nerve, did I?
In case you missed it, that was a humorous observation of the European weltanschaung. Those people were never sovereign individuals, as Americans are - thus the “Peon” part.
Want me to say it again, very slowly?
;-)
Yes.. when I was twenty I was a genius.. but have grown progressively dumber since then..
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