Euthanasia of stray dogs, unconstitutional

On Wednesday, the Constitutional Court decided that the law on the euthanasia of stray dogs was not constitutional.

The law stipulates that the euthanasia of stray dogs could be made after the local authorities have consulted the population.

The Constitutional Court judges have accepted with a majority of votes the challenge to the unconstitutional law that amended and supplemented the Ordinance 155/2001 regarding the approval of the programme involving stray dogs, initiated ​​on 25 November 2011 by 70 PSD deputies and 54 PNL deputies.

The announcement regarding the unconstitutional law was welcomed with joviality by the members of animal protection organisations, who protested on Wednesday at the Palace of the Parliament, the headquarters of the Constitutional Court.

Directors, composers, film critics, journalists, painters, athletes, artists, photographers, doctors and civil society have demanded that the law should not be adopted.

According to the initiators of the challenge, the stipulations of the law amending and supplementing the Ordinance 155/2001 break the Article 61, paragraph 2 of the Constitution, as the form in which it has been adopted by Chamber of Deputies on 22 November is fundamentally different from the bill approved by the Senate.

Moreover, they argue that " euthanasia is an extreme measure, which infringes the stipulations regarding the animal rights recognized by international organisations as compulsory community rules".

"The law provides the euthanasia solution, which can be currently applied, in mass, on stray animals, although it should have been applied only under certain limited exceptional circumstances".

On 22 November, the Chamber of Deputies adopted the law concerning stray dogs, which states that the euthanasia of stray animals can be made after the local authorities have consulted the people by opinion polls, referendum or neighbourhood meetings.

According to that law, the local councils should have created within 60 days from the first day this law came into effect specialised services for stray dogs and establish and supplement from their own funds public shelters for dogs.

Also, dogs must be kept in shelters created by councils for 30 days, except for those claimed by owners.

Moreover, the normative act also stipulates that when the housing term had expired and the dogs had not been claimed or adopted, they could be kept in shelters, released, put down or the local council and the General Council of Bucharest could come up with a combined solution, after consulting the population.

According to the Director of the Authority for Supervision and Protection of Animals (ASPA), Robert Lorenz, there are about 40 000 dogs in Bucharest.

Last year, Robert Lorenz, quoted by News In stated that all the stray dogs in Bucharest would be sterilised by May 2012 in a campaign aimed at sterilising almost 8 000 dogs.

Translated by: Cătălina Virvescu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University