German pigs file lawsuit against castration without pain relief

Little piggies went to court in Germany and ask the apex court of the country to ban the painful practice of castrating young male pigs without anaesthetic. For the first time in a legal record, animal activists dressed as pigs listed the piglets as plaintiffs. The process of castrating has become controversial in Europe and has even been banned in Sweden, Norway and Switzerland.

However, farmers, on the other hand, argue that it is essential few hours after pig's birth to prevent 'boar taint' which is an occasional occurrence of a foul smell that comes on cooking male pigs after puberty.

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Angered PETA activists

The German Parliament had outlawed castration with anaesthesia in 2013 but offered a five-year transition period to the farmers and adapt to the change. This timeline was then extended in 2018 to 2021. Angered by this development, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) activists filed the lawsuit in Germany in November on behalf of the pigs.

The group stresses that judges should recognise the rights of pigs similar to those of human rights which are being violated with the 'cruel act' of castration without pain relief. The lawyer supporting PETA, Cornelia Ziehm reportedly said that since non-human entities like companies and associations have legal personhood, 'so why not animals too?'. 

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The base of this entire case is that 'jedermann' or everyone can file a case in a German court. However, a law professor at Mannheim University, Jens Buelte reportedly expressed his doubt if the judges in Karlsruhe would see the case in the same light.

Under German law, according to Buelte, animals do not have rights of their own. This is not the first time that animals have filed a lawsuit on their behalf. In 2015, PETA was again in the headlines when it filed a case in the United States on behalf of a macaque who 'owned' the copyright of the image it snapped on a wildlife photographer's camera. Even though the image of the grinning monkey went viral, the American court ruled that animals can not bring up copyright infringement suits. 

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(With agency inputs)