Argentina court grants Sandra, an orangutan, human legal rights
A court in Argentina ruled that Sandra will receive legal rights. If there’s no appeal, the ape will be freed from the zoo she’s been living in for 20 years and transferred to a sanctuary in Brazil.
An Argentine court has ruled that Sandra, who has spent 20 years at the zoo, should be recognized as a person with a right to freedom. The ruling would free Sandra from captivity and have her transferred to a nature sanctuary in Brazil.
The rights that were denied to a chimpanzee in New York have been granted to an orangutan in Argentina. A court in Argentina ruled that Sandra, an orangutan who has lived in the Buenos Aires zoo for 20 years, will be granted human legal rights. “This opens the way not only for other Great Apes, but also for other sentient beings which are unfairly and arbitrarily deprived of their liberty in zoos, circuses, water parks and scientific laboratories,” said Afada lawyer Pail Buompadre in an interview with La Nacion newspaper. Lawyers had argued that the ape was being illegally detained and that, although she wasn’t human, her case should be treated like a person’s. Earlier in December, a New York State appeals court ruled that a privately owned chimp named Tommy was not considered to be a person and therefore couldn’t be granted any rights. New York Justice Karen Peters said that in treating animals as persons they would have societal obligations and duties that they are not capable of fulfilling.
The court in Argentina, however, sees animal captivity differently. The Argentina’s Association of Professional Lawyers for Animal Rights (Afada) fought that Sandra was a person in a philosophical sense, not a biological. The lawyers filed a habeas corpus writ in November over “the unjustified confinement of an animal with probable cognitive capability.” Although the court judges had rejected the writ several times before, they finally decided to consider the ape’s freedom. If there’s no appeal, Sandra will be freed from the zoo she’s been living in and transferred to a sanctuary in Brazil.
Source – Daily News