Animal protection
And now, about a proposed law on behalf of the voiceless. A law in the making for a decade and a half. If the subject of ‘law’s delays’ has been ongoing for some time, ‘ law making delays’ seems as chronically deficient.
Animal welfare legislation has been on the drawing boards with the Law Commission and elsewhere for a very long time and since 2006 in the hands of the Rajapaksa 1 Administration. A draft has been going from department pillar to ministry post. The former ' Good Governance' Administration that promised to pass this piece of legislation within 100 days of coming into office in 2015 could not fulfil its pledge. The draft ended up in the Ministries of Rural Economy and of Livestock and got lost in the process.
It seems to have been retrieved from some black hole of officialdom by some kind soul and the present Cabinet has got the Minister of Agriculture (of all people) to present it in Parliament. But again, it is straining to find its way to the House. It has only now been gazetted. If only the animals too have trade union rights to strike – unless they are also deemed 'essential services'.
Animals are sentient beings like humans with feelings, emotion, pain and a right to life. The proposed law seeks to replace the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Ordinance of over a century ago (1907) introduced by the colonial British with some salient new provisions. Given this country's long established animal friendly socio-cultural-religious heritage, this is a law that must find its way even to the supreme law – the Constitution, like what some European countries have done.
There is cynicism that laws are implemented only selectively in this country and that this law will be no different. Yet, the first step is to enact the laws. In a country where there are human- animal conflicts in rural Sri Lanka, and human rights itself is the subject of scrutiny, making a case for animal rights may seem the subject of wry amusement, but the issues cannot be mixed up; the deficiency in one which the Government promises to rectify has no bearing on ignoring the other.
May all beings be happy!