(CN) — Europe’s top rights court upheld a ban on killing livestock without first stunning them, finding on Tuesday that animal welfare could trump religious practice.
A mixed-faith group of people and organizations brought the complaint to the European Court of Human Rights, arguing Belgium’s ban on ritual animal slaughter violates their religious freedom.
In 2017, the Belgian region of Flanders mandated that all animals be stunned before slaughter, virtually banning Jewish and Islamic ritual slaughter, which require that animals be in perfect health before they are killed. A second region, Wallonia, followed in 2018.
The laws were pushed by an odd mix of animal rights groups and far-right, anti-Muslim politicians. In opposing the law, Jewish and Muslim leaders also came together in an unusual alliance.
The group of 16 people and 7 advocacy groups first brought a suit in Belgian court, which landed at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg in 2020.
The Court of Justice — which oversees European Union law — held that the ban did not violate the rights of Jews and Muslims. EU regulations require that animals be “rendered insensible to pain before slaughter,” but member states can make exceptions for religious rituals.
The group then turned to the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights. The court is underpinned by the 1953 European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the political and civil rights of Europeans.
The seven-judge panel came to a similar conclusion as their compatriots in Luxembourg. “The protection of animal welfare constitutes an ethical value to which contemporary democratic societies attach increasing importance and that should be taken into account when assessing restrictions placed on the external manifestation of religious convictions,” the justices wrote.
The two courts are not obliged to follow the other’s rulings and are sometimes at odds. However, Tuesday’s decision was closely aligned with that of the European Court of Justice.
“Animal welfare, as a value to which contemporary democratic societies have attached increasing importance for a number of years, may, in the light of changes in society, be taken into account to a greater extent in the context of ritual slaughter and thus help to justify the proportionality of legislation such as that at issue in the main proceedings,” the 15-judge panel in Luxembourg wrote in 2020.
Belgium is home to some 500,000 Muslims and 30,000 Jews. Those who want to observe their religion’s slaughter rules must now obtain meat from abroad.
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