Swiss Reject Proposal to Appoint Lawyers for Abused Animals

While the city of Zurich reportedly employs a lawyer to represent animals in cases alleging abuse or excessive cruelty to animals, Swiss voters have overwhelmingly rejected a measure that would have expanded the practice throughout the country. Some 70.5 percent of the electorate defeated a proposal that would have required paying 25 or more lawyers to prosecute humans on behalf of abused animals. Some have attributed the outcome to recent press reports that Zurich’s animal advocate was involved in prosecuting an angler who boasted that it took him some time to reel in a 22-pound pike. The angler was charged with and prosecuted for causing excessive suffering to the animal, but later acquitted. Although the pike story attracted numerous animal rights fans, many Swiss apparently did not believe that fish need legal representation. See The Guardian, March 5, 2010; The New York Times, March 8, 2010.