Environment Minister Duarte Cordeiro told Lusa this Saturday that the government supports a clarification of the law on the criminalization of mistreatment of pets so that there are no setbacks in this matter.
“Regardless of what decision the Constitutional Court may make on the constitutionality of penal rules, the Government will accompany the Assembly of the Republic in any work of law densification that may be necessary, to ensure that we do not fail to condemn any barbaric act against animals,” said Duarte Cordeiro.
Regarding whether a constitutional review is also necessary in this area, the environment minister said that the clarification of the law is “provisionally necessary to overturn this final decision of the Constitutional Court”.
“This issue [da revisão constitucional] it is another subject that can be discussed in the proper space of the Assembly of the Republic; there is nothing that leads us to believe that it is necessary to solve this problem,” he said.
When asked about demonstrations like the one that took place today in Lisbon, which brought together thousands of people in defense of the criminalization of animal cruelty, Duarte Cordeiro believed that “they are very important” in defending animal welfare beliefs and values. .
“We must raise the standards of animal protection and not the other way around, not go backwards. Not have a setback that was difficult for the Portuguese to understand,” he said.
Duarte Cordeiro also recalled that “the general regime for companion animal welfare, which provides for the revision of the national framework applicable to abuse and abandonment”, will soon be submitted for public consultation and that the government will move forward with a national plan for Adoption, in which both measures will be included in the 2023 National Budget.
Today’s demonstration in Lisbon was convened by the organization Intervenção e Resgate Animal (IRA), after the Public Prosecutor’s Office asked the Constitutional Court about the unconstitutionality of the rule providing for this criminalization.
It’s about the standard that criminalizes anyone who kills or mistreats pets for no legitimate reason with a fine or prison, according to a press release released Wednesday by the Attorney General’s Office.
According to the memorandum, the request for unconstitutionality arises after three decisions by the TC on the matter.
Today, the president of the republic defended that animal welfare “should be duly enshrined in law”, recalling that Parliament can do this “through ordinary legislation” or through the constitutional review process that is underway.
Speaking to Lusa, the vice-chairman of the PS group, Pedro Delgado Alves, said that the party aims to make the protection of animal welfare “perfectly clear to everyone”, shows openness to changes in the law and recalls that the socialist project of constitutional revision enshrines this right.
Source: DN
