People who have been convicted of mistreating an animal, especially a companion, will not have their pet again when they have served their sentence because in that case the authorities will definitively confiscate it.
This is one of the novelties incorporated this Wednesday by the Senate in the reform of the Criminal Code on animal abuse, the text of which will be definitively approved next week by Congress, as well as the Animal Welfare Law, whose parliamentary process is being processed. producing jointly since the Government both texts to the Cortes Generales.
In its passage through the Senate, the reform of the Penal Code received two veto proposals and 76 amendments, and the text returns to Congress when 10 amendments are approved, presented by Esquerra Republicana, Junts, Más Madrid, Compromís and Més per Mallorca, according to Servimedia was able to find out from parliamentary sources.
These parties proposed changing the Penal Code to include the definitive confiscation of an animal intervened as a precautionary measure for having been mistreated by its owner so that the owner does not have it again once he has served his disqualification sentence for animal possession.
This approach was approved by the Senate, with which the Criminal Code will include the recommendations made in this regard by the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) and the Fiscal Council, which advocated protection and well-being as criteria for deciding on the fate of an abused animal.
Fernando de Rosa, from the PP, has already warned both in the Social Rights Commission and in the Plenary Session of the Senate that mistreated animals could be left unprotected in these cases.
“The definitive confiscation of animals is not regulated. Therefore, when an aggressor completes the sentence, the assaulted animal will be returned to him, does that seem correct to you, Madam Minister?” De Rosa told Ione Belarra, head of the portfolio of Social Rights and Agenda 2030 during the debate in the plenary session of the Senate.
On the other hand, the Animal Welfare Law includes 18 of the 424 amendments that reached the Senate plenary alive and that were presented by the PSOE, Esquerra Republicana, the PNV, Junts, Más Madrid and Compromís.
One of the novelties is that, at the initiative of Junts, it will not be mandatory to identify with chips or sterilize cats from feline colonies. In addition, the allusion to the prohibition of begging using pet or wild animals in captivity disappears, thanks to amendments by Junts and Más Madrid, since this avoids stigmatizing the homeless who care for them, with which will prevent them from eventually being penalized when they are on a public road accompanied by their pets.
In addition, citizens must notify the authorities that they have certain animals, specifically arthropods, fish or amphibians whose bite or venom may pose a serious risk, poisonous reptiles or any adult reptile weighing more than two kilos -except chelonians-, primates or mammals wild adults of more than five kilos.
This circumstance, thanks to an amendment by the PSOE, must occur six months after the entry into force of the law, pending the approval and publication of the positive list of companion animals, which will include species in which that its possession, sale and commercialization is allowed.
The Animal Welfare Law eliminates the mention that civil protection plans should contain animal protection measures, something requested by the PNV and accepted in the Senate, as well as that the measures included in the regulation will not mean an increase in spending public, since, according to an amendment accepted by Esquerra Republicana, the autonomous communities and town halls must have more personnel and material resources. The fact that dog owners must take a test together with them to assess their aptitude to function in the social sphere, at the request of Compromís, does not appear in the text either.
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