If the Swiss adopt this stupid measure, then they will ALL be ready for admittance to the Bürghölzli in Zürich forthwith! Sicherlich können die Schweizer nicht recht bei Trost sein! Perhaps Colonel Ghadhafi was right all along. It could be that this really is the land of the infidel! They certainly don’t have enough serious things to think about, or else they wouldn’t come up with nonsense like this! Think about this: Goldfish are given more rights in Switzerland than homosexuals are in Muslim countries! Now that's something to ponder over. – © Mark
TIMES ONLINE: There is no better place than Switzerland to be a chicken. Or a hamster. Or even — though the jury is still out on this — a goldfish.
The reason is that the country has an extraordinary set of animal protection laws that closely define the obligations of pet owners and farmers.
Now it is about to go a step farther [sic]: a national referendum tomorrow will decide whether to allow animals official legal representation.
The canton of Zurich already has an animal advocate, Antoine Goetschel, a kind of courtroom Dr Dolittle who, for the past two years, has been fighting the corner for flogged horses, depressed Dalmatians and tortured fish.A “yes” vote will place publicly funded animal welfare lawyers, like Mr Goetschel, across the country. “Then I think the Government should create some form of academy or educational forum for animal barristers,” Mr Goetschel said. “These are not skills learnt at law school.”
The tricky issues facing these new Rumpoles of the barnyard came to a head a fortnight ago in one of Mr Goetschel’s most toughly fought cases.
An angler on Lake Zurich landed a 22lb (10kg) perch after, as he subsequently bragged to a local paper, a ten-minute fight. Zurich citizens complained and the state prosecutor passed the case to Mr Goetschel, who had to determine how long an angler can struggle to land a fish before it becomes an act of cruelty. Fish-rights supporters opened a Facebook page for the dead perch — 6,000 “friends” made it probably Europe’s most popular fish — while the anglers argued fiercely that the fish felt no pain.
Mr Goetschel did not win the case. >>> Roger Boyes | Saturday, March 06, 2010
