Last of two parts
IN the US, a habeas corpus (one has the body of a person) proceeding on behalf of Happy, a 48-year-old female Asian elephant in the Bronx Zoo in New York City, gained prominence among environmental law circles around the world.
The grounds for the habeas corpus action were: 1) Happy was unlawfully imprisoned in the zoo and should be relocated to one of the two elephant sanctuaries in the US; 2) Happy had lived alone in a 1-acre enclosure which constituted solitary confinement, "notwithstanding the uncontroverted scientific evidence that the elephant is an autonomous, intelligent being with advanced cognition abilities akin to human beings"; 3) the Bronx Zoo imprisons Happy in a tiny, cold, lonely, un-elephant-friendly and unnatural place, and ignores her autonomy as well as her social, emotional and bodily liberty needs.
The court rejected the application of habeas corpus elaborating on what it takes to be deemed as a "person" and defined legal personhood as a function of having both rights and duties in society. Elephants "cannot bear duties, submit to social responsibilities or be held legally accountable for their action ... rendering it inappropriate to confer upon elephants the legal rights such as the fundamental right to liberty protected by the writ of habeas corpus accorded to human beings."
In connection therewith is a decision rendered in another case, Cetacean Community v. Bush, 386 F.3d 1169, 1176 (9th Cir. 2004), where it was stated that "... it is obvious that an animal cannot function as a plaintiff in the same manner as a judicially competent human being. But we see no reason why Article III prevents Congress from authorizing a suit in the name of an animal, any more than it prevents suits brought in the name of artificial persons such as corporations, partnerships or trusts, and even ships, or of judicially incompetent persons such as infants, juveniles and mental incompetents." Ultimately, however, in resolving the issue of whether the world's cetaceans have standing under relevant federal legislation, it failed to find such authorization in the statutes under consideration.
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