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BREAKING: What This Judge Just Did For The First Time Gives A Nonhuman Constitutional Rights
Since when have nonhumans enjoyed legal rights afforded to humans; specifically constitutional protections granted to citizens of the United States? Well, if a judge’s ruling in New York is proven to carry the legal weight that an animal rights group claims it does, that “when” could be now.
The Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) has declared in a just-issued press release that, for the “first time in world history,” a judge has recognized two chimpanzees being used for research purposes as “legal persons” and granted them writ of habeas corpus. That right is essentially a means by which detainees can seek relief from unlawful imprisonment and is embodied in Article One, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution: “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.”
The NhRP statement read, “Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe issued an order to show cause and writ of habeas corpus on behalf of two chimpanzees, Hercules and Leo, who are being used for biomedical experimentation at Stony Brook University on Long Island, New York.”
The statement went on to declare that Justice Jaffe has “implicitly determined that Hercules and Leo [the two chimpanzees] are ‘persons’” in the eyes of the law.
A post at The Verge notes that the animal rights group has been arguing for some time, and before several courts, that these two chimps, along with others, are being unlawfully imprisoned by the university researchers. The group kept up the legal fight until the case finally landed in front of the New York Supreme Court Justice who just issued what could prove to be a landmark ruling.
“Three lower court judges dismissed the cases as they were raised in 2013, but the Nonhuman Rights Project appealed, eventually convincing Jaffe that the animals were sufficiently intelligent to grant them what amounts to basic human rights.”
The next court action in the case involving Hercules and Leo is scheduled for May 6th, when representatives of Stony Brook University are supposed to appear before Judge Jaffe to respond to the animal rights group’s claim that the apes are being detained unlawfully. Even if that hearing fails to uphold the chimps’ “personhood,” the head of the Nonhuman Rights Project says a major victory has already been won.
“We have scientific evidence to prove in a court of law that elephants, great apes, and whales and dolphins are autonomous beings and deserve the right to bodily liberty,” she said. “[This ruling] strengthens our argument that these nonhuman animals are not property.”
This post originally appeared on Western Journalism – Equipping You With The Truth
Source: http://www.westernjournalism.com/breaking-what-this-judge-just-did-for-the-first-time-gives-a-nonhuman-constitutional-rights/
