Some Excellent news for Brown Bears in the Republic of Slovenia from:

The society for the rights and liberation of animals, Slovenia.

(Referred to as “our society” in all text following.

Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia consented the initiative of The society for the rights and liberation of animals and nullified the execution of the brown bears.

Althought in Slovenia the brown bears are endangered species and therefore protected by Habitat Convention of EU as well as by slovene Decree on protected wild animal species, there was set the annual quota by the Minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning of the Republic of Slovenia in years 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 (Rules on the taking of brown bear (Ursus arctos) from the wild ).

Althought it is not known, how many bears there are in Slovenia, the Minister for example ordered to execute 75 bears in 2008, for the previous year even 100.

In years 2005, 2006 and 2007 there were approximately 300 bears executed, which is absurd, because we talk about the endangered species.

In the opinion of our Society those execution were illegal, because there weren’t given the conditions defined in Habitat Convention as well as there weren’t given conditions defined in slovene Decree on protected wild animal species for the intervention into the population of bears.

Intervention, as well as the execution of bears is namely acceptable if there is no alternative and if that doesn’t harm the preservation of favourable condition of the population of brown bear. Naturally, there also have to be given examples, listed in both of the previously mentioned law acts, when the intervention into he population is possible ( example: causing serious damage, assuring public health and safety, ..).  

According to the opinion of our Society, in Slovenia none of these conditions were given and that makes the execution of bears illiegal.

Because of the execution of bears in opposition to the Habitat Convention and slovene Decree on protected wild animal species, we made an initiative to Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia in years 2006, 2007 and 2008 to estimate constitutionality and legality of rule, that set the annual quota of bears for execution. We also made an initiative to estimate constitutionality and legality of the Decree on changes and amendments to the Decree on protected wild animal species (OJ RS No. 84/05), that was the law basis for issuing the rule mentioned in previous sentence.

In initiatives, we stated number of violations of the regulations as well as the violation of the procedure of accepting both acts.

One of the violations we blame them for is, that the procedure of accepting both acts wasn’t in accordance with Aarhus Convention, that obliges Slovenia as well and defines the right to access to information on environment, possibility to participate in procedures of deciding and free access to means of law.   

Constitutional Court confirmed our reproach ( Decree no. U-I-386/06-32 dated 13th of March 2008 ). The Constitutional Court also decided that The Environment Protection Law is incompatible with slovene Constitution, because it doesn’t regulates the participation of public into the procedure of preparing sub-law regulations, that are issued in connection with protected animal specie.

Because of that, they also annulated Decree on protected wild animal species and Rules on the taking of brown bear (Ursus arctos) from the wild. The recall starts to produce effort 3 months after affirmation of the law, by which the slovene parliament shall abolish mentioned incompatibility between The Envoronment Protection Law and the Constitution.  

The efficiency of annulation of rule, that defines the execution of bears shall unfortunately be valid only in a couple of months. Many believe, that this means that in Slovenia, by that time the execution, ordered by the Minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning is still possible – Rules for 2008.  

According to stated, in Slovenia, there could be executed 10, 20, 30 or more bears.  

This is the reason why we addressed to The Government of The Republic of Slovenia, to The Minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning and to The Slovenian Hunting Association an appeal to immediately stop the execution of bears in Slovenia.

We believe it is illogical to use a regulation, that was recalled, inspite of the fact that the result of recalling is posponed for a while.

If we use a regulation, that was recalled, we could endanger the whole law structure of the state, because we believe, only incontestable general law acts can be used.

This means valid regulations, not recalled ones. The ones that are not incompatible with Constitution and similar. 

In any case it is extremely unethical to use recalled regulations whether we talk about endangered specie or not.  

It is becoming more and more clear, that lives of people are indivisibly connected with lives of animals and that the bad situation of animals is not in peoples’ interest.

It is known, that for example cattle-breeding is the biggest threat to environment and one of the largest destroyers of the climate, because emissions of harmful gases produced by cattle-breeding are much larger than emissions of the whole traffic in the world ( FAO report ).   

We know also, that climate changes are bigger threat to the society than for example terrorism.

If all the people were vegetarians, we could control climate changes, says english physicist Alan Calverd.

And not only that – there would be much less civilization diseases, because it is proved, that meat is the risk factor for many civilization diseases.   

According to written, we ask all who are interesed, to support our appeal for instant interruption of execution of bears and therefore to intervene at The Government of The Republic of Slovenia, at The Minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning and at The Slovenian Hunting Association.

The society for the rights and liberation of animals, Slovenia:

Stanko Valpatič, The President

and

the lawyer Vladko Began, Animal Rights Ombudsman

Ostrožno pri Ponikvi 26, 3232 Ponikva

Tel.: +386 (0)3 5763 303, GSM: +386 (0) 31 499 756

Our Society has a status of public interest in Slovenia.

Together we are creating animal friendly Slovenia.

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