On Jan. 15, 2002, hundreds of thousands of sheep and cattle suffered a terrible defeat at the hands of the highest German court. It was not about their life - they forfeited that anyway as "cows for slaughter" in a meat-addicted society. It "merely" concerned their right to at least not have their throats cut while fully conscious and then bled until their life-spirit fades away.

This right is certified in German law for the protection of animals, which allows the killing of a "warm-blooded animal" only "when it is rendered unconscious before being bled." The traditional slaughtering method according to Jewish rites and certain practices in parts of Islam, in which the animal's aorta, windpipe and esophagus are severed in order to let it bleed to death while still conscious, thus came into conflict with this law. For ritual slaughtering of this kind, the law allows for special licenses when compelling regulations of a religious community prescribe ritual slaughtering or forbid eating meat that is not slaughtered in this way."

The Jews have received such special licenses for years, for their religious food regulations contain a commandment for the Passover Feast to eat only the meat prepared by ritual slaughtering. The highest German Administrative Court denied this to Moslems several years ago, saying: The Koran "in its wording contains no general forbiddance against rendering animals unconscious." The court refers not lastly to a report by the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, which determines that in case of necessity Moslems in the Diaspora may eat meat that has not been prepared by ritual slaughter. In addition, the court remarks that no adherent of Islam is forced to eat such meat against his individual religious conviction: "It may well be that in our society today meat is in general a customary food. However, the abstention from this food does not represent any unreasonable limitation of one's personal developmental possibilities." 

Since then, Turkish butchers in Germany who wanted to perform ritual slaughtering for themselves and their Moslem customers have received no more special licenses. One of them fought his way through the courts all the way to the Supreme Court and made legal history of a bloody kind. The constitutional judges corrected the administrative judges and relaxed the butchering law considerably: With the question of whether a compelling religious regulation is in effect, it does not depend on "Islam as a whole or the Sunni or Shiite convictions of this religion." It can also merely concern a group within a larger religious community; and it is sufficient when "according to their common religious conviction, the consumption of meat from animals compellingly requires a ritual slaughtering that rejects first rendering the animal unconscious." This is also the case when the religious teaching of the faithful allows them to adapt to the prevailing food customs in a foreign country.

The court came to this result based on previous weighty decisions of a legal and factual kind. Firstly: The Moslem butcher would be severely impaired in his freedom to choose his occupation if he had to switch to selling meat from animals not slaughtered as prescribed. Secondly: His Moslem customers, who for religious reasons eat only meat prepared according to certain prescribed rituals, cannot be expected to abstain from eating meat; this does not sufficiently take into account the eating habits of Germany, where meat is a very common food. Thirdly: Animal protection is indeed a "matter of public interest," but according to the valid law does not refer to any encroachment on animal well-being, but merely to not cause "pain, suffering or harm without reasonable grounds" - a guideline the interpretation of which should take into consideration "tradition and social acceptance," like, for instance, hunting, which also includes killing without rendering the animals unconscious beforehand. Fourthly: All this requires the relaxation of the forbiddance of ritual slaughtering in favor of the "constitutionally protected practice of an occupation determined by religion" and for the observation of "religiously motivated food restrictions by the customers of the one practicing the occupation." "Without an exception of this kind, the constitutional rights of those who want to take up ritual slaughtering as an occupation would be unreasonably limited and the interests of animal protection would be unilaterally granted precedence without sufficient constitutional justification. Instead, it is necessary to have a regulation that equally takes into account the basic rights involved as well as the goals of an ethical animal protection."

The ruling will trigger discord among jurists and indignation among animal protectors. It contains one piece of good news and three bad ones. The good news is the high status that the Supreme Court granted to how a religious community views itself. It is to be hoped that in the future this holds true not only for the Catholic seal of confession and Old Testament ritual slaughter, but also for new religious movements and their views that deviate from "tradition."

The word "tradition" introduces the bad news from Karlsruhe, the seat of the German Supreme Court: Because it is a traditional leisure-time sport in field and forest to shoot animals and severely injure them, especially in the abdominal cavity, as well as to kill them without first rendering them unconscious, the religiously based abstention from rendering animals unconscious is said to be in agreement with "ethical animal protection." Will St. Hubertus also now become the patron saint of ritual slaughterers? And this, even though 2/3 of all Germans are against hunting - as "a cowardly form of murder of helpless fellow creatures," as Theodor Heuss, the first president of the German Republic, once said.

The "social acceptance" grounds which was granted such high status by the Supreme Court ruling appears to also block its view to the suffering of ritually slaughtered animals. This suffering comes casually onto the judges' table with the question of whether a limitation of the slaughtering method can be justified at all. What the animals felt with or without being rendered unconscious seems "to be not yet conclusively scientifically clarified." This shoulder shrug of the "red robes" could intensify the thoughtlessness of many citizens of this country concerning the fate of animals generally and toward ritual slaughtering especially. For this reason, let us once more bring to mind that before being slaughtered this way, the animal must first be "fixed," that is, thrown down and tied up - with the help of ropes, chains and winches, as well as a violent twisting and stretching of the neck and head. It is unthinkable that in this process - especially with cows - it does not come over and over again to painful bruises and broken bones, to say nothing of the terror of the animals: panic, defense and flight attempts - the torment before the torture by the knife, which veterinarians in no way consider to be a pain-free death. With sheep, death is said to start after 30 seconds, with cattle only after two minutes. A further calamity is that when the throat is cut the blood can get into the windpipe and lungs, which is again especially painful.

These cruel processes that cause so much suffering could not have remained hidden to the court. The court reasoned that these are of no consequence in comparison to the Moslem butcher's freedom to choose his occupation and the religious freedom of his customers, indicating that otherwise, "the interests of animal protection would be unilaterally granted precedence without sufficient constitutional justification." With this, we come to the last piece of bad news. The court is less responsible for it than the lawmakers: In the triangular relationship between freedom to choose one's occupation, freedom of religion and animal protection, the animals fall by the wayside, because animal protection is still not yet a part of the German Constitution. Two attempts to have it included in the constitution were shot down in parliament - by the majority of the "Christian" political parties. 3.2 million Moslem fellow citizens are taking advantage of this. Even though the Koran allows them to abstain from ritual slaughtering when living abroad or to live as vegetarians, many will now insist on it. Whether this is truly in the spirit of Allah, each one must decide for himself.  

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