European Court of Justice approves Belgian kosher slaughter ban - Lahav Harkov

 

​ by Lahav Harkov

 

The laws requiring animals to be stunned before they are slaughtered strike "a fair balance between animal welfare" and religious freedom.

 

The European Union Court of Justice upheld a ban on kosher and hallal slaughter in Belgium, in a ruling released on Thursday.

The court dismissed arguments by Jewish and Muslim groups that Belgium is infringing on their religious rights by requiring them to stun animals in the process of slaughtering them for meat, something contrary to their religious precepts.

The ruling sets a precedent that could lead to a wave of laws across the European Union against shechita, Jewish ritual slaughter.

European regulations ban slaughter without pre-stunning, but make an exception for religious slaughter. At the same time, those regulations state that countries can set their own laws to reduce animal suffering.

The court determined that the laws requiring animals to be stunned strike "a fair balance to be struck between the importance attached to animal welfare and the freedom of Jewish and Muslim believers to manifest their religion.

"The reason the court gave for the law being balanced is that it allows for “reversible stunning.” The court also said that the law limits one specific aspect of the ritual act of slaughter, not the act of slaughter itself, and as such does not count as interference with religious practice.

However, mainstream Jewish and Muslim authorities do not permit any form of stunning before slaughtering animals for meat, such that the court has determined that outlawing the production of meat for those communities is a fair balance between animal rights and the rights of Jews and Muslims.

"That interference [in ritual slaughter] meets an objective of general interest recognized by the European Union, namely the promotion of animal welfare," the court stated.

The court did not accept the argument that hunting and killing animals at "cultural or sporting events" is still permitted by law, despite the animals not being stunned before they are killed."

Cultural and sporting events result at most in a marginal production of meat which is not economically significant. Consequently, such events cannot reasonably be understood as a food production activity, which justifies their being treated differently from slaughtering," the ruling states.

The court took the unusual step of ruling against the European advocate-general's opinion.

Advocate-General Gerard Hogan stated in September that EU member states "are obliged to respect the deeply held religious beliefs of adherents to the Muslim and Jewish faiths by allowing for the ritual slaughter of animals," and that requiring stunning in the slaughter process "would compromise the essence of the religious guarantees" the EU provides.
 

THE DUTCH-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia regions of Belgium passed laws in 2017 prohibiting slaughter without pre-stunning, even in the context of religious rites, such as kosher shechita and Muslim slaughter.

Belgium’s Constitutional Court sent the lawsuit, filed by the Coordinating Committee of Jewish Organizations in Belgium, to the European Union Court of Justice last year to determine whether the laws violate EU regulations.

Committee President Yohan Benizri, who is also vice president of the European Jewish Congress said: “No democracy can exist when its citizens are denied basic human and civil rights. We plan to pursue every legal recourse to right this wrong.”

Brooke Goldstein, executive director of The Lawfare Project, which helped Benizri with the legal challenge, warned that "the religious freedom of millions of Europeans has been put in jeopardy by this shameful ruling."

Israeli Ambassador to Belgium Emmanuel Nahshon said that the ruling is "a catastrophic decision, a blow to Jewish life in Europe. Apparently, tolerance and diversity are empty words in the eyes of some Europeans."

Russian Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, said Thursday’s decision “flies in the face of recent statements from the European Institutions that Jewish life is to be treasured and respected.

“The Court is entitled to rule that member states may or may not accept derogations from the law… but to seek to define shechita, our religious practice, is absurd,” Goldschmidt stated. 

“The European Court of Justice’s decision to enforce the ban on non-stun slaughter in the Flanders and Wallonia regions of Belgium will be felt by Jewish communities across the continent," he said. "The bans have already had a devastating impact on the Belgian Jewish community, causing supply shortages during the pandemic – and we are all very aware of the precedent this sets, which challenges our rights to practice our religion.”

Goldschmidt said that historically, bans on religious slaughter have been an attempt to control a country’s population, and can be traced back to the 1800s, when Switzerland attempted to stop Jews fleeing pogroms from entering their country, as well as to Nazi Germany. In 2012, he said, politicians in the Netherlands attempted to ban ritual slaughter to stop the spread of Islam.

“We are told by European leaders that they want Jewish communities to live and be successful in Europe, but they provide no safeguards for our way of life," the rabbi said. "Europe needs to reflect on the type of continent it wants to be. If values like freedom of religion and true diversity are integral, then the current system of law does not reflect that and needs to be urgently reviewed.”

 

Lahav Harkov 

 Source: https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/european-court-of-justice-approves-belgian-kosher-slaughter-ban-652402 

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter