Judgment / After the Geese verdict, another victory for the defenders of the rights of Israel
Moshe Gorli, Haaretz and news and voila!
Experiment with monkeys. It turned out that there is no list of alternatives to the experiments
A few days after the great victory in the fight against goose fattening, animal rights defenders won another legal victory. In the petition filed by the "Association for Moral Science" under the Freedom of Information Law, Judge Dr. Drora Falpel required the Ministry of Health and the Council for Animal Experiments to publish information regarding the experiments, especially the types of experiments and alternatives designed to reduce the use of animals.
A year ago, the association petitioned the District Court in Tel Aviv, through the lawyers Hagi Ashlagi and Saghi Agmon, claiming that the complete lack of transparency surrounding the experiments covers up the evasion of the provisions of the law. The Animal Cruelty (Animal Experimentation) Law, which was enacted in 1994, required the establishment of rules and the establishment of a council and committees to supervise and approve the experiments in the various institutions. On his side, reporting and control mechanisms were established, the purpose of which is "to ensure the minimization of the suffering caused to the animal and the prevention of conducting unnecessary experiments". Among other things, it was determined that "a permit will not be granted to conduct experiments on an animal if the purpose of the experiment can be achieved by reasonable alternative means".
Until 2001, seven years after the law entered into force, the Council and the Ministry of Health did not bother to establish rules for its operation; They were forced to do so only following a petition to the High Court by the "Israeli Association Against Animal Experimentation". Judge Dalia Dorner was angry, and ordered the state to pay expenses of NIS 7,500, among other things, for her strange explanations for not installing regulations.
Lessons were learned from this petition, and later the state and the council hurried to comply with the law in order to save binding judgments. For example, the attorney's office announced in the hearing of one of the petitions that an audit committee would be established as required. A threat of legal action also led to the resignation of Dr. Roni Kalman, due to fear of a conflict of interest: he served at the same time as both a member of the council designed to supervise the experiments and a shareholder in the company that is supposed to be supervised by her ("Harlan") - which breeds and sells animals for experiments.
Two administrative petitions were recently submitted, which reached the decision of Judge Pepper. One is still being discussed and its purpose is to reveal the minutes of the discussions regarding the alternatives. In the second petition, the ruling regarding the delivery of the information was given. The judge strongly criticized not only the failure to provide the information, but also its absence. "The duty of the Ministry of Health", she writes, "is to classify every request that is submitted according to the essence of the experiment, as what guides it is a minimum number of animals (...) If the Ministry was working meticulously according to the provisions of the law - the information would be in its hands."
An interesting fact became clear in the discussion: the council announced that a list of alternatives to animal experiments does not exist. "It is of course desirable to have a list of this kind, which is based on past experience and research in Israel and around the world in order to minimize the possibility of non-essential experiments on animals, because every animal lover will be heartbroken if, despite the legislator's determination to conduct experiments on animals only if there is no alternative to experiments (…) An experiment will be conducted, when there is a possibility of an alternative. The existence of a list of alternatives may minimize damages of this kind," Judge Pepper wrote.
According to Ayelet Salai-Raiz, the chairperson of the Association for Moral Science, "experiments cannot be considered in isolation from the global trend of reduction - in the amount of animals used for experiments and in the actual types of experiments." The law defines four types of experiment: to promote health and medicine; to promote scientific research; for commercial purposes; for education and teaching. "Entire series of animal experiments for teaching purposes have been converted to alternative methods," says Salai-Reise. "In Israel, on the other hand, the experiments continue as a matter of routine."
The organizations have been trying for years to break the bond of silence and concealment behind which the experiment system in Israel is conducted. The association's legal advisor, Adv. for a real need.
In this petition as well, the state incurred expenses, this time higher - NIS 40. The Ministry of Health is pressing to appeal the verdict, and it is interesting whether the minister, Danny Neve, will agree. Neve is remembered in the association as a credit scorer alongside Salai-Raiz and Erna Banai, in his uncle Topaz's program dedicated years ago to the fight against experiments. As the minister in charge of the matter, the association does not expect him to join it or to repeat his statements from that program, but he is expected to at least not file an appeal against the verdict, and to concentrate on its implementation, the application of the law and the disclosure of the information. "At the end of the day, this is not about sensitive security matters," noted Judge Pepper.
Experiments on animals in Israel - milestones
- * 1994 An animal cruelty law was enacted to regulate animal experiments
- * 2001 Following a petition to the High Court, regulations and rules for experiments were established
- * 2002 Following another petition, an audit committee was established as required
- * 2003 The District Court in Tel Aviv requires the Ministry of Health and the Council for Animal Experimentation to provide information about the experiments
- * 2003 pending in the District Court in Tel Aviv another petition to disclose the protocols from discussions on alternatives to experiments
