The elephant Happy is not a “person” and therefore will not leave her zoo

Access to this content has been blocked to respect your choice of consent

Clicking on ” I ACCEPT », you accept the deposit of cookies by external services and will thus have access to the content of our partners

I ACCEPT

And to better remunerate 20 Minutes, do not hesitate to accept all cookies, even for one day only, via our “I accept for today” button in the banner below.

More information on the page Cookie management policy.

–
–

—

Disagreement among judges

The New York Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday, finding that elephants are indeed “intelligent beings who deserve adequate care and compassion”. But according to the judges, the right to liberty cannot apply to “a non-human animal, which is not a ‘person’ subject to unlawful confinement”.

For the head of Court of Appeal, Janet DiFiore, proving Happy would upend all “human-animal interactions” in property, agribusiness or medical research. Two of the seven judges, however, dissociated themselves from this decision, considering that Happy should have been granted a right to freedom “not only because she is a wild animal who is not supposed to be in cages and on display, but also because conferring Rights to others defines our society”.

Janet DiFiore underlined the “enormous interest” that this file aroused among the public. “It bears witness to the complicated and evolving relationship between humans and animals “, she wrote, hoping that the debate continues in the legislative assemblies rather than in the tribunal. The association has already introduced similar remedies for other elephants and chimpanzees in UNITED STATES.

–