NEW YORK (Sputnik) — While Chimpanzees will not be granted the same rights as humans, modern history has shown that this may soon change, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe stated in a ruling.
“Efforts to extend legal rights to chimpanzees are thus understandable,” Jaffe said in her ruling on Thursday. “Some day they may even succeed.”
Jaffe referred to US Supreme Court’s same-sex decision in June 2015 as an example that courts may become faster in embracing change.
“As [Supreme Court Justice Anthony] Kennedy aptly observed… times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress,” Jaffe stated.
Jaffe sided with the university, and refused to grant the two chimpanzees additional rights in order to allow the chimps to be freed from the research facility and placed in a sanctuary as per the demands of animal rights activists.
“Given the precedent to which I am bound, it is hereby ordered, that the petition for a writ of habeas corpus is denied and the proceeding dismissed,” Jaffe ruled.
Jaffe cited previous cases where the court refused to grant animals human rights and noted there was no reason for this case to be any different.
The Nonhuman Rights Project has announced it will appeal the ruling.
The Nonhuman Rights Project is a non-profit American animal rights organization that seeks to change the legal status of at least some non-human animals from property to persons, according to the group’s website.
