It’s one thing to be buried with your (already deceased) dog. It’s another thing to put your pet to sleep when you die, he says. PhD researcher Pauline Christiansen (KU Leuven and UGent) In the “Quarter”. It investigates the legal quality of animal legislation.
“Under Belgian law, you can be the owner of an animal, and therefore you can also have access to the animal. The same rules that apply to goods also apply to animals. But what you can do with the animal is always Limited by animal welfare legislation.This is a matter of regional authority: in our three regions it is forbidden to kill an animal or cause it unnecessary suffering.”
“Then the question arises whether a person’s will is a sufficient necessity to put an animal to sleep,” Christiansen continues. Like, for example, the last wish of a deceased person. “As far as I know, there is no Belgian law on this matter.”
There is one German court case that can serve as an example. “In German case law, there is no necessity to kill an animal, but only ‘reasonable grounds’. However, a judge ruled in 2018 that there was no reasonable ground to kill a healthy dog, even though that dog had been involved in some biting incidents.”
“It is a case that intersects between ethics and law. But I doubt that the Belgian judge would reach the same conclusion, and therefore the animal will not sleep.”
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