What! Appeal court asked to extend human rights to chimpanzee

We know about animal rights but when an appeal court is asked to extend human rights to an animal, we begin to get confused. Okay, the animal is a chimpanzee, should it get human rights because it is a primate?
 

Photo: EPA via Al Jazeera

A New York appeals court on Thursday answered that question by rejecting an animal rights advocate's attempt to extend "legal personhood" to chimpanzees.

Attorney, Steven Wise, representing “The Nonhuman Rights Project”, was seeking a ruling that Tommy, a 26-year-old chimp, had been unlawfully imprisoned by his owner, Patrick Lavery. He argued that the chimp should be released to a sanctuary in Florida.

The court agreed that Wise was able to prove to the court that Tommy was an autonomous creature but it held that  it was not possible for the chimp to understand the social contract that binds humans together.

The presiding judge, Justice Karen Peters, according to Reuters, wrote:

"Needless to say, unlike human beings, chimpanzees cannot bear any legal duties, submit to societal responsibilities or be held legally accountable for their actions"

Peters advised Wise to lobby the state legislature to create new protections for chimps and other intelligent animals.

Lavery, the man holding the chimpanzee was quoted as saying that he agreed with the judges, stressing that Tommy was receiving state-of-the-art care and was on a waiting list to be taken in by a sanctuary.

He however said: "It will be my decision where he goes and not someone else's”

Wise, who is a co-founder of “The Nonhuman Rights Project said that he would ask the Court of Appeals, New York state's top court, to hear the case, saying: "This is just the first appellate decision in a long-term strategic campaign" to win rights for chimps and other intelligent animals.

According to Wise and other experts, this is the first case anywhere in the world in which a court is been asked to extend human rights to animals.