제 11 호 Animals are No Longer Objects
Kicker: SOCIETY (ANIMAL PROTECTION)
Animals are No Longer Objects
By Eugene Ha, Editor / Su-Yeon Park, Cub-Reporter
eugine16@naver.com / possible921@naver.com
Sangmyung University has small and precious popular friends. Do you happen to know? There are ‘Onsooni’, a cute little cat at Sangmyung University's Cheonan campus, and ‘Sangnyangi’ at the Seoul campus. Also, there is a cat club called 'Holding in Your Arms' that is doing abandoned animal protection activities together at the Cheonan Campus. It actually means Anseo-dong cat in its arms’, and it is a club that helps cats living in Anseo-dong as well as cats in the schools. With so many students interested, we would like to convey that a new legal provision has recently been created to ensure legal status for pet and animal protection issues that have long been a problem.
- Onsooni
As well as child abuse, animal abuse is still a constant social issue. Animal protection measures are better than before, but they are still a problem. To ensure the legal status of such animals, the government decided to add a new clause in the civil law, "Animal is not an object," and the Ministry of Justice announced on July 19 that it will announce a revision to the civil law. Under the current civil law, objects are defined as "natural forces to manage fluids, electricity and other things," and animals have been treated as objects among them. Therefore, relentless violence and animal abuse are occurring, and damage compensation is not being properly paid. Currently, as the number of households raising pets increases, the opinion that animals should be protected and respected has led to the revision of the law.
From the Past to the Present
Abuse of animals was not illegal 30 years ago. The 1991 Animal Protection Act entered the realm of crime, specifying a ban on abuse. Animal protection laws have developed slowly but steadily. However, the trend of treating animals as objects rather than as living beings has persisted for 30 years.
The Animal Protection Act has been revised nine times in total since it was enacted in 1991. The law has continued to be revised based on a number of cases, specifying a provision banning animal murder, injury and abandonment.
Early History of Animal Protection Legislation in Korea
● 1991/5/31 Enactment of the Animal Protection Act - No animal abuse
● 2007/1/26 Materialize and expand the scope of prohibited activities
● 2011/8/4 Additional prison sentences.
● 2013/4/5 Prevention of neglect
● 2013/8/13 Establishment of animal abuse definition regulations and ban the sale of abusive videos
● 2017/3/21 Punishment for causing death of an animal by negligence.
● 2018/3/20 Animal hoarders and dog abandonment punishment
● 2019/8/27 Ban gambling using animals
●2020/2/11 The act of causing animals to die, aggravated legal punishment, and criminal punishment for abandonment of animals.
●2021/7/19 Ministry of Justice announced legislation to revise the civil law - "Animal is not an object."
European Animal Welfare Developed Countries' Animal Protection Laws
Many European countries, including Germany, Austria and Switzerland, have already stipulated the law "Animal is not an object." Continuing problems with pets, how are other countries abroad dealing with it?
1. Germany: Pet Certificate Test
Germany said in its 1990 amendment, "Animal is not an object. Animals are specially protected by law. The provisions that apply to goods shall apply only when there are no applicable provisions," under Civil Code Section 90a. Germany is also active in animal welfare in civil law. Since commercial sales of pets are prohibited in Germany, adoption of pets is only possible through abandoned animal shelters. In addition, the guardian must pass the adoption qualification examination considering family composition and residential environment.
The dog license system, which has been implemented by the German state of Lower Saxony since 2011, consists of a total of two tests, a written test and a practical test. The first written test deals with dog common sense in various fields, from dog knowledge to related laws, such as dog and human, dog and law, and dog health. In the second practical test, the guardian's ability to cope with situations that may occur in public with dogs is tested. Thanks to Germany's strict animal protection laws and adoption system, the rate of dog abandonment in Germany is very low at 2 percent. As a result, the system proved effective by proving that the number of pets actually abandoned has decreased.
(Question) How soon should a guardian praise a dog if it did the right thing? A. In 30 seconds to 2 minutes, B. In exactly five minutes. C. Up to 2 seconds. D. Time doesn't matter. The important thing is praise. (Answer) C, the shorter the time difference between the dog's behavior expression and the compliment (reward), the more clearly the dogs understand. |
- Example of qualification test for dogs in Germany
2. Sweden: Regulations on the Living Environment of Pets from Indoor Temperature to Air
The Swedish government minimizes the incidence of abandoned pets with the pet ID registration system, while suggesting various living provisions that must be followed by guardians within the Pet Protection Laws. This is as follows:
1. The temperature of the indoor space with the pet dog should be between 10 and 21 degrees, and there should be a window with sunlight.
2. Ammonia levels of indoor air with dogs shall not exceed 10 ppm and carbon dioxide shall not exceed 3,000 ppm.
3. Pet dogs should not be tied up indoors and should not be left alone for a long time due to the nature of living in groups.
4. Dogs cannot be separated from their mother dogs for at least eight weeks of age.
5. Pet dogs should take a walk once every six hours.
6. Pet ID must be registered within 4 months of age.
In this way, the regulations on abuse have been subdivided to prevent various animal abuse in foreign countries. In particular, because Korea's law is a written law system, there is a limit to defining what is not written as illegal, and there is a high risk because it can be misjudged by law enforcement officers and judges. Therefore, many people, including the Animal Freedom Alliance, are demanding that the provisions of abuse be subdivided into specific phrases.
The revision is a changed expression of value recognition that animals are different from objects, which means that the human obligation category for animals has expanded. However, since the Constitution is fundamental to all laws, the next step of the revision of the civil law is to clarify the "status of animals different from objects" in the long term by specifying animal protection obligations in the Constitution.
