Legal Problems of Improving Legislation on the Protection of Farm Animals

Gleba Ol'ga Vladimirovna PhD in Law Associate Professor, Department, Department of Civil and Arbitration Process, MGIMO Federal State Educational Institution of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia (Odintsovo Branch) 143007, Russia, Moscow region, Odintsovo, Novo-Sportivnaya str., 3 olga_gleba@mail.ru

The attitude of society towards farm animals has changed significantly in recent decades: more and more people have begun to think not about increasing the productivity of the livestock products they receive, but about ways to obtain them that should not cause great harm to the animal's health and, accordingly, violate the principles of humane treatment of them. Already in 1965, B. Komitti singled out the "five freedoms" in keeping animals. In particular, animals should be protected from: "hunger (malnutrition) and thirst; significant physical and thermal stress; pain and illness; fear and stress; mistreatment of them." These "five freedoms" have become universally recognized, although they have not been legislated for a long time.

Legislative acts regulating the maintenance of animals appeared somewhat later. In this regard, the experience of Europe is indicative, which turned out to be among the leading ones, having developed the world's first international standards for animal protection. The acts of the Council of Europe protect the rights of animals that are used for scientific purposes, as well as kept on farms and sent for slaughter. In particular, we are talking about a number of European conventions: on the protection of animals kept on farms (Strasbourg, 10.03.1976), on the protection of animals intended for slaughter (Strasbourg, 10.05.1979), on the protection of domestic animals (Strasbourg, 13.11.1987). To this should be added numerous regulations of the European Union in the field of animal husbandry. For example, only on the issues of "breeding, feeding and keeping pigs, gradation of the quality of pork carcasses and pork meat, sanitary control over it, the procedure for determining pork prices, there are more than 120 regulations and directives of the EU and the EEC" ^{[1, p. 166]}. In Europe, back in 2012, a law was passed prohibiting the keeping of chickens in small and cramped cages.

Unfortunately, Russia did not follow the path of ratification of these most important international acts that ensure humane treatment of farm animals and provide for a detailed system of rules for their protection ^{[7, p. 60]}. But, as it is rightly noted in the scientific literature, this "does not prevent taking steps on an initiative basis to bring Russian legislation closer to European legislation, at least for reasons of economic competition in the livestock market. The international realities are such that the standards of keeping, using and slaughtering farm animals include, as an integral part, ensuring the requirements of humanity, and these realities cannot be ignored" ^[3].

There is currently no single legislative act in the Russian Federation that would protect and support the rights of all animal species, including agricultural ones, to live satisfying their needs and experiencing minimal suffering. There are a number of separate laws regulating certain issues of keeping and using farm animals. For example, Federal Law No. 260-FZ of 25.07.2011 "On State support in the field of agricultural insurance and on Amendments to the Federal Law "On the Development of Agriculture" ^[10] regulates the issues of insurance protection of property interests of owners of farm animals associated with the risk of their loss or death, and also gives the concept of farm animals, referring to these include animals of all kinds, of any sex and age composition, the breeding of which is carried out in order to obtain livestock products. However, the regulatory act itself, as well as the Federal Law "On the Development of Agriculture", does not affect the issues of the legal status of farm animals and their protection at all. Federal Law No. 4979-1 of 14.05.1993 "On Veterinary Medicine" ^[9] defines the requirements for the planning and construction of livestock complexes, poultry farms, meat processing plants, and other enterprises for the production and storage of animal products, which are aimed at creating the most favorable conditions for the maintenance of animals and the production of animal products, but the content of the concept of "favorable conditions" does not it is revealed. Features of animal turnover are contained in The rules for the sale of certain types of goods, which state that animals intended for sale must be kept in accordance with generally accepted norms of humane treatment of animals in conditions that meet sanitary, veterinary and zoohygienic requirements for the maintenance of animals^[6]. However, in these normative legal acts, the issues of humane treatment of animals and ensuring their well-being have not been properly consolidated. Meanwhile, unbalanced feeding, unfavorable conditions of detention, unsatisfactory state of health are among the few criteria affecting the welfare of animals.

An important event in the field of protection of all types of animals (except wild ones, which have their own legal regulation) was to be the adoption of Federal Law No. 498-FZ dated 27.12.2018 "On responsible Treatment of animals and on Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation" ^[11], since such a legislative act regulating issues of maintenance, There was no use and protection of animals at the federal level either in the Russian Federation or in the former USSR, while in many foreign countries the relevant acts were adopted a long time ago. This law was supposed to eliminate a legal gap in the regulation of social relations, the object of which are animals of all kinds that are not in a state of natural freedom, that is, not related to objects of the animal world (wild animals).  Meanwhile, the evaluative concept of "responsible treatment" contained already in the title of the law, which is not only not disclosed in the law (i.e. has no legal content), but is not used anywhere in the text, is recognized by many scientists ^[3] as one of the gaps in the legislative regulation of this sphere of relations. The purpose and subject of regulation of this law, formulated in part 1 of Article 1 of the Law, at first glance are quite voluminous in content, as they are designed to regulate relations in the field of animal treatment (without restriction on their species) in order to protect them, as well as strengthen morality, respect for the principles of humanity, security and other rights and the legitimate interests of citizens in the treatment of animals. But if we turn to the provisions of part 2 of the same article, according to which "the provisions of this law do not apply to relations in the field of keeping and using farm animals," then we can conclude that the removal of this category of animals from the scope of this law is absolutely not justified, especially since a special regulatory act regulating issues of humane treatment there are no problems with farm animals (including their transportation and slaughter) at the federal level. It should be noted that the law extends its effect to domestic animals, which are defined as "animals (with the exception of animals included in the list of animals prohibited for keeping) that are kept by the owner - an individual, under his temporary or permanent supervision and whose place of detention are not zoos, zoo gardens, circuses, zoo theaters, dolphinariums, oceanariums". It can be assumed that the legislator did not take into account that farm animals traditionally belong to the number of domestic animals.

Relationships regarding farm animals, we have two main special laws: on veterinary medicine and livestock breeding, each of which has its own tasks, and the issues of keeping, using and protecting animals are regulated only indirectly, to the extent necessary for the implementation of these tasks, among which, unfortunately, compliance is not legally prescribed principles of humanity and protection of animals from abuse. In addition, there is no general law on animal husbandry or on farm animals, and the concept of "farm animal" is given in the legislation in fragments, in relation to the purposes of a specific law, as, for example, in the Federal Law "On Agricultural Insurance".  

As a result, to date, no regulatory legal act has established rules that ensure humane conditions for keeping and slaughtering farm animals, and there is also no implementation into the Russian legal system of the norms of international law aimed at ensuring humane treatment of farm animals. However, as experts rightly believe ^{[7, p. 65]}, this does not prevent "by generalizing the norms of the European Union to consolidate in domestic legislation the minimum guarantees of humane maintenance, transportation and slaughter of farm animals." This could have already been done within the framework of the Federal Law "On Responsible Treatment of Animals", without excluding farm animals from its scope, especially if we take into account that the undoubted advantage of the law is the consolidation in it of such an important issue of animal protection as their protection from abuse. The law formulates the concept of cruelty to animals in a rather voluminous way, as "the treatment of an animal that has led or may lead to death, injury or other damage to the health of an animal (including the torture of an animal, including hunger, thirst, beatings, other actions), violation of the requirements for the maintenance of animals established by this Federal Law, other federal laws and other regulatory legal acts of the Russian Federation (including the owner's refusal to keep an animal), which caused harm to the animal's health, or the owner's failure, if possible, to help an animal in a life- or health-threatening condition" (paragraph 5 of Article 3 of the Law). It should be noted that the prohibition on "treatment of an animal that has led or may lead to death" contained in the wording of the concept under consideration cannot be considered as a general prohibition of arbitrary killing of animals, since "killing" is recognized as a purposeful action that is not always committed out of motives of cruelty (for example, when slaughtering farm animals, killing occurs, but there is no motive of rigidity here).

It is very important that the concept of "cruelty to animals" is supplemented by article 11 "Protection of animals from cruelty", which contains a wide list of prohibited acts recognized as cruelty, and article 12 "Prohibition of propaganda of cruelty to animals", which indicates the intention of the legislator to give this problem legal significance at the federal level.

Meanwhile, long before the adoption of the Federal Law "On Responsible Treatment of Animals", the regions tried to settle issues of animal treatment by adopting relevant regulatory legal acts with different legal force. For example, in the Leningrad, Novosibirsk, Pskov, Voronezh and Tomsk regions, the Republics of Sakha (Yakutia), Bashkortostan, Buryatia, Krasnodar Krai, regional Laws on the maintenance and protection of pets were adopted, and in the Kaliningrad, Nizhny Novgorod regions and the republics of Tyva and Chuvashia – by-laws in the form of Rules for the maintenance of cats and dogs. However, the analysis of these regional acts shows that farm animals were also excluded from the scope of their regulation.

Consequently, the gaps in the legislative regulation of the maintenance and protection of farm animals today are more relevant than ever, requiring immediate solutions for a number of reasons. Firstly, the quality of life of farm animals directly depends on the quality of animal products received from them. Secondly, the animals themselves need protection from inhumane and cruel treatment of them. Thirdly, the existence of legal regulation of humane treatment of farm animals is an important indicator of the humanization of the whole society, in which humane treatment of animals should become the principle of any activity, the object of which are animals.

Recent changes in Russian legislation related to the strengthening of the criminal consequences of cruelty to animals and the adoption of the Federal Law "On Responsible Treatment of Animals" allow us to talk about the beginning of the process of forming the Institute for Animal Protection. In this regard, the question arises whether animals have rights, in particular, to be treated humanely, as well as the relationship of these concepts ("animal rights" and "humane attitude" to them). As E.L. Minina rightly notes, "problems related to the humane treatment of animals are rather in the sphere of relations for the protection of public morality and are not covered by the norms of veterinary, sanitary-epidemiological, environmental and other branches of legislation that somehow relate to the treatment of animals" ^[5].

According to the current civil legislation, the general rules on property apply to animals, while the obligation of people – subjects of law – to treat them humanely and responsibly is legally fixed (paragraph 2 of Article 137 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). This duty means imposing on the owner of the animal a special burden of its maintenance.  In this regard, it would be appropriate to cite the position of V.A. Mikryukov, who identified the following responsibilities that constitute the burden of keeping an animal: 1) ensuring the physiological needs; 2) keeping the animal in special sanitary and epidemiological conditions; 3) protecting the animal from abuse; 4) eliminating the increased danger of the animal to society ^{[4, p. 48]}. For example, improper bearing of the burden of property maintenance should be considered a violation by the owner of animals and producers of animal products of the requirements of Article 18 of the Law on Veterinary Medicine, in terms of their failure to implement economic and veterinary measures that ensure the prevention of animal diseases and safety in veterinary and sanitary terms of animal products, the maintenance of livestock premises and facilities for storing feed and processing of animal products, environmental pollution by animal waste, etc. Animal cruelty should also be considered improper burden-bearing of property maintenance.

With regard to farm animals, the need to comply with the principle of humane treatment is limited by the mention in the technical regulations of the Customs Union "On Food Safety" ^[8] (Article 19) that the slaughter of such animals is carried out in ways that ensure humane treatment of productive animals. None of the existing regulatory legal acts do not define such methods. In our opinion, humane treatment of farm animals should not be limited only to humane methods of slaughter. Equally important is the provision of such conditions for keeping animals that would not cause them suffering throughout their lives. Therefore, humane treatment of farm animals should be based on the legislative consolidation of the following duties of their owners:

1) providing sufficient food and water, taking care of the health and well-being of animals;

2) ensuring the protection of animals from diseases in order to prevent epidemics, providing veterinary care to sick animals;

3) ensuring humane and maximally comfortable conditions during transportation (prohibition of overflow of cars with animals, ensuring the most comfortable loading and unloading) or fixation of animals during the provision of special procedures (medical care, diagnostic studies), in which the probability of causing various injuries and injuries to animals increases many times;

4) the use of humane methods of slaughter of sick or injured animals;

5) training of personnel working with animals in the proper handling of animals;

6) conducting a periodic survey of the herd to identify the needs for something;

7) the use in the production of the latest novelties and achievements that improve the conditions of keeping animals.

These responsibilities for the treatment of farm animals fully comply with the requirements of organic animal husbandry outlined in Federal Law No. 280-FZ dated 3.08.2018 "On Organic Products", the main purpose of which is the healthy maintenance of farm animals, and as a result, their productivity increases.

In conclusion, we note that the issues of animal protection and humane treatment of them require a comprehensive solution at the legislative level. The adoption of the Federal Law "On Responsible Treatment of Animals" failed to fully regulate the social relations arising from human interaction with various categories of animals, due to the exclusion from the scope of its regulation of farm animals, which, no less than other types of animals, need care and protection from cruelty to them. The absence of legally established requirements, norms and rules for the treatment of farm animals in practice leads to the fact that their owners are trying to solve emerging problems in ways that violate the norms of morality and morality existing in society and contradict generally accepted concepts of humanity and mercy. Humanism should manifest itself in ensuring their safe existence for animals, given that they, like any living being, are inherent in pain and suffering. This should be reflected in the current legislation, which should be as close as possible to the best international experience in the humane treatment of animals.

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