Belgian Cattle Market Scandals

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Press release, 14 November 2002

 

GAIA and Animaux en Péril are indignant at this new slap in the face

 

The Court upholds the law of cruelty

 

GAIA and Animaux en Péril are to appeal

 

The animal organisations GAIA and Animaux en Péril are shocked by the

acquittal of the seven cattle dealers against whom the public

prosecutor had initiated proceedings before the magistrate's court of

Dinant on charges of serious ill treatment of animals at the Ciney

cattle market.

 

Once again, the judge did not rule on the substance of the case,

namely cruelty against animals. He acquitted the cattle torturers,

considering that the video footage could not be accepted as evidence

and that it constituted an invasion of the privacy of the cattle

dealers.

 

GAIA and Animaux en Péril will appeal this second shameful ruling,

which once again sends the wrong message to cattle dealers,

namely: " don't worry if visual proof of your misdeeds is submitted to

the public prosecutor, you will not be found guilty anyway, for as

always, it is your law of cruelty that prevails " .

 

GAIA and Animaux en Péril reject the invasion of privacy argument.

What private life ? The private life that allows someone to torture

animals undisturbed, with total impunity ?

 

Moreover, there is no legislation that specifically forbids pictures

taken with a hidden camera to be used as evidence in court cases. In

addition, the law of 8.12.1992 relating to the protection of private

life is not applicable in this context. GAIA and Animaux en Péril in

no way substituted themselves for the public prosecutor, since it is

the latter who asked GAIA to hand over the footage and who proceeded

to identify the culprits, and not GAIA. The public prosecutor has

confirmed this course of events.

 

In its opinion dated 13.12.1999, the Commission for the Protection of

Private Life indicated that taking pictures of private individuals

does not constitute an invasion of privacy when acts of delinquency

or serious offences are involved. Moreover the Ciney cattle market

is a public place, as a bailiff has noted. Furthermore there is the

ruling of the Court of Hasselt, sentencing the por ter of a nightclub

on the basis of pictures taken by a hidden camera by private

individuals and not by the police. The porter had prevented an

immigrant from entering the nightclub, and was found guilty

of racism on the basis of the sole evidence of video footage filmed by

private individuals and not by the police. But the judge failed to

take this precedent into account. Why these double standards ?

 

GAIA calls attention to the very many systematic complaints brought by

public prosecutors in similar cases of animal abuse, and to the fact

that the police, which has state-of-the-art equipment worthy of the

FBI, will never go to the cattle markets of Ciney or anywhere else to

make preventive police reports. Anyone who thinks that they would do

so is deluded.

 

This ruling proves once again that some judges are totally impervious

to social reality.

 

GAIA calls upon politicians to question whether the law on animal

welfare is worth the paper it is written on, insofar as the judges

refuse to enforce a law that is supp osed to punish cruelty to

animals. If the law is useless,one may as well throw it out of the

window - at least the situation would be clear. But in any case, the

current situation is untenable.

 

For further information:

GAIA: 02/ 245 29 50 - 0475/ 45 2015 (Michel Vandenbosch) -

477/ 53 42 02 (Ann De Greef)