Judge rules out human rights for chimps
MONKEYS, SEE, don’t rate the same legal rights as we do, a court ruled.
A longshot effort to grant two chimpanzees “legal personhood” failed Thursday as a five-judge panel of the Manhattan Appellate Division ruled unanimously that the two primates, Tommy and Kiko, are not entitled to rights enjoyed only by humans.
“The asserted cognitive and linguistic capabilities of chimpanzees do not translate to a chimpanzee’s capacity or ability, like humans, to bear legal duties, or to be held legally accountable for their actions,” Justice Dianne Renwick wrote.
The ruling also noted that nonhumans “lack sufficient responsibility to have any legal standing.”
No animals have faced justice in the recent history of New York, the ruling ever pointed out. “Even chimpanzees who have caused death or serious injury to human beings have not been prosecuted,” the decision read.
The suit was the latest of several legal efforts by the Nonhuman Rights Project to get the upstate chimps transferred to a sanctuary.
Tommy the chimp lives in a cement cage in a warehouse in Gloversville, according to court papers. Kiko lives in a storefront in Niagara Falls, lawyer Steve Wise said.
Wise (photo inset) argued the chimps are intelligent enough that they should be removed from imprisonment if the conditions are deemed unlawful.
But the case raised issues that were not for the courts to decide, the judges wrote.
“While petitioner’s avowed mission is certainly laudable, the according of any fundamental legal rights to animals . . . is better suited to the legislative process,” the ruling read.
The Nonhuman Rights Project said it will appeal to the state’s highest court.
“For 2,000 years, all nonhuman animals have been legal things who lack the capacity for any legal rights. This is not going to change without a struggle,” Wise said.