SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, June 15. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Court of First Instance and Instruction number 1 of La Gomera has notified today, Wednesday, the order that agrees to the precautionary suspension of activity and the seal of a livestock farm located in the Barranco de Santiago, in San Sebastián de La Gomera.
Said exploitation, presumably, lacks a license, discharges slurry (urine and manure) without any type of control into the bed of the ravine – with a risk to the quality of surface and underground water “very difficult to repair” – and keeps about 60 pigs. in “a state of malnutrition” and “at risk to his life”.
The judicial authority explains in the resolution that, at the request of a complaint from the Civil Guard and the Insular Water Council of La Gomera, the owner of this farm is being investigated as the alleged perpetrator of crimes against natural resources and the environment and of a crime of mistreatment related to the protection of domestic animals.
Consequently, and in accordance with the prosecutor’s request, he not only orders the preventive seal of the activity, but also confiscates and precautionarily intervenes the animals, “provisionally withdrawing their care and custody” from the owner of the exploitation, to attribute that to the Area of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of the Cabildo de La Gomera.
The judicial authority clarifies that the pigs remain under the guardianship of the Island Corporation “without prejudice to the fact that after the veterinary evaluation of each of the animals (…) the practice of euthanasia may be recommended for them, for the sake of the welfare of animals, prior judicial authorization”.
The order states that the photographic report made by the Seprona team shows that the facilities “lack sanitary hygienic elements, in addition to the fact that the food received by the animals is inadequate”, showing the majority of the cattle “thinness and apparent signs of extreme malnutrition.
In the opinion of the instructor, there is a “serious and serious risk to the life and integrity of the animals” if the precautionary measure is not adopted to refer their guardianship to the public administration so that they “return to an adequate environment for their normal development and satisfaction of your needs”.
PIONEER MEASURE
The resolution of the Gomeran Court is a pioneer in terms of the adoption of a precautionary measure for the protection of animals within the framework of a criminal proceeding. In fact, remember that the current Law of Criminal Procedure (LeCrim) does not contemplate any rule that regulates the preventive measures that could be applied to protect animals while processing, which is the case, a procedure for the crime of abuse.
The judicial authority makes up for this lack by resorting to the generic legal formulas that legitimize the preservation of criminal evidence that is in danger of disappearing and, when applying the type of crime that protects pets, invokes the modification of the Penal Code of 2015 which extended the protection of domestic animals to those “tamed” or those that do not live in the wild.
The instructor also invokes circular 7/2011 of the State Attorney General’s Office, which considers that those animals that “even if they are wild or wild, have been dominated by man to the point of getting used to their company, should also be protected by criminal law. , depending on it for their subsistence (…)”.
In reference to the possible crime against the environment, he underlines that the exploitation is “located in an area of public hydraulic domain, occupying the public channel and throwing the slurry into it, without stating the required authorization, so that over time and the temporary space that this case lasts may not only lead to further damage being caused to the general interest, but also tomorrow may make an eventual conviction absolutely unfeasible (…) and an eventual ecological restoration of the area, in order to avoid further damage and harm to the public interest”.
