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Animal protection amendment to the German constitution
In May the lower house of the German Parliament, the Bundestag, adopted a bill that would include animal protection in the national constitution. The bill was passed by a huge majority after more than 10 years of debate in political and animal welfare circles. The Bundesrat, the upper house, approved the bill in June, making Germany the first country in Europe to include animal welfare in its constitution.
The Minister for Consumer Affairs and Agriculture and Green Party member Renate Kuenast described the change as "groundbreaking" and said that she hoped it would lead to new curbs on animal experimentation. However, she also pointed out that the change would not diminish human rights. "People remain the most important", she said.
The effect will be to add the words 'and animals' to a clause of the constitution, which would then read, "The state takes responsibility for protecting the natural foundations of life and animals in the interests of future generations." This will not have any immediate effect, but it will influence the way in which future German legislation is drawn up and current laws interpreted.
The federal constitutional court will have to balance the right to freedom of scientific inquiry, which has been in the constitution for some years, with the responsibility to protect animals. The German Society for Health and Research said that the new wording would cause legal confusion.
It was a change of mind by the Christian Democrats that decided the matter. Previously they had been against adding animal protection to the constitution because of concerns that it might lead to restrictions on research. However, in a controversial court case in January, Muslims sought the right to slaughter conscious animals by the halal method. Because the constitution included a right to religious freedom without any balancing provision concerning animal welfare, the court ruled in favour of halal slaughter. This decision appears to have convinced leading Christian Democrats to re-think their stance on the constitutional change.