https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2017/05/04/animal-activist-wins-partial-victory-in-thirsty-pig-trial-walkom.html
The good news for Toronto animal activist Anita Krajnc is that she’s been acquitted of the crime of giving water to a thirsty pig.
The bad news is that the judge hearing her case didn’t accept her crucial argument – that sentient animals such as pigs are more than mere property.
Krajnc, 50, is co-founder of Toronto Pig Save, a group opposed to the use of cows, chickens and pigs as human food. Their tactic is what she calls “bearing witness” – peacefully protesting the transport of live animals to area slaughterhouses.
Sometime the protestors provide water to thirsty pigs jammed together in the trailer of a transport truck.
That’s what Krajnc was doing in June 2015 outside a Burlington slaughterhouse – reaching through the slats of a tractor-trailer to give water to a thirsty pig. But this time she was charged with criminal mischief.
Legally, the case centred on whether Krajnc’s offer of water (which she freely admitted) interfered with an owner’s right to enjoy his property. Her lawyers focused on the property angle arguing that sentient animals are more than mere possessions and that they therefore have some rights of their own.
This is part of a strategy among some activists to argue that animals should be treated as “persons” under the law — that is, that they should enjoy certain rights, including the right to be represented in court.
That’s not as radical as it might seem. Legally, inanimate corporations are treated as persons possessed of rights. Why not live animals?
But this was not an argument that impressed the judge in Krajnc’s case. Justice David Harris said Thursday that he didn’t accept pigs as legal persons. He said he heard no convincing evidence that they are anything but property.
see also
https://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2017/05/04/verdict-expected-today-for-woman-who-gave-water-to-pigs-headed-to-slaughter.html
Cheers erupted in the courtroom as Krajnc, an activist with the group Toronto Pig Save, was acquitted on the charge of mischief laid in connection with the incident. She had pleaded not guilty, although she admitted to giving the pigs water.
Outside court, Krajnc acknowledged that the case has bolstered her cause and said she hoped it would encourage others to stand up for animal rights.
“This is how social movements get their word out, we go outside our comfort zone and we do what’s right,” she said.
James Silver, one of Krajnc’s lawyers, said the court ruling “acknowledges that compassion is not a crime,” which he deemed an important victory.
Her other lawyer, Gary Grill, nonetheless expressed some disappointment that the judge “missed the greater arguments . . . about Anita acting in the public good.”
“Should the matter arise again, we’ll be ready to make that argument all over,” he said.
