The 2015 Amendment to the Code Civil in France: Animals as sentient beings, and as non-property
- 28 may 2016
- 4 min de lectura
France and Nicaragua are both civil law countries. Their laws are both drafted in codes, the most important of which is the Napoleonic Code, now referred to as the Civil Code. The analysis of the evolution of the legal status of animals, now considered as both sentient and non-property in the French Civil Code is helpful to advance the legal protections for animals in Nicaragua, as the Nicaraguan civil code was largely built after the French Napoleonic Code.
France regulates the status of animals under three codes:
The Penal Code, since 1810, prohibits acts of cruelty against animals who are domesticated, tame, or captive[1];
The Rural Code, since 1976, regulates husbandry practices of animals raised for food, considers animals as both things and sentient beings that “must be placed by its owner in conditions compatible with the biological imperatives of its species.”[2]; and
The Civil Code, amended in 2015, which now defines animals as sentient beings.
The amendment to the Civil Code passed in 2015[3] aimed to make the legal status of animals consistent among all three codes. The Civil Code was the only one of the three dispositions regarding animals in French law not to consider animals as sentient beings, whereas the Rural Code, applicable to animals used for food, already acknowledged this feature since 1976.[4] The amendment to the Civil Code is more than just a symbolic victory: it is in fact an important step that opens the door to more change in the way animals are and will be approached under French law.
Jean-Pierre Marguénaud demonstrated in his analysis of the new disposition[5] that the 2015 amendment implicitly marks the withdrawal of animals from the property regime. The new section 515-14 states the following: “Animals are sentient, living beings. With the exceptions of the laws that protect them, animals are regulated under the legal status of goods.”[6] When looking at the location of such an article in the Civil Code, one notices that it was added before section 516, which provides that “All things are either regulated as movable or immovable.” [7] By defining animals as sentient beings chronologically before inanimate objects, the Civil Code extracts them from the section devoted to non-sentient property. In contrast, before the reform, the legal status of animals was defined either as “movable” or “immovable” things, under the section entitled “The various kind of things,” leaving no doubt as to their status as things.
When looking at the content, the new version specifies that animals are not property, even though regulations related to things continue to apply to them, as the second part of sentence reads: “With the exceptions of the laws that protect them, animals are regulated under the legal status of goods”. Therefore, under French law, animals are not “sentient beings” and property at the same time, because the two are incompatible features. Instead, they are sentient beings whose applicable legal status (regimen jurídico) is that of things, by default of not being fully human persons. Thus, they are sentient things, and not sentient property. This highly nuanced change may seem slight, yet it is an essential step because the shifting of animals from inside the section devoted to things, to outside of the section is significant and tangible progress: under the French Civil Code animals are not property anymore. It is now up to the courts to give a meaningful interpretation of section 515-14 of the Civil Code, and to confirm that animals are non-property. Under French law, which has only two categories - persons and things, the autonomous category of animals as non-things might be the corner stone of an animal personhood yet to be built through case law.[8]
This achievement was the result of years of efforts made by the animal protection movement in France. More particularly, the 2015 Civil Code amendment was drafted following the report authored in 2005 by Suzanne Antoine,[9] a French judge and animal rights activist. In this report, Antoine illustrates the growing interest from the public regarding animal welfare, and she sets forth concrete proposals for amendments to be included in the Civil Code. It is also noteworthy that the 2015 Civil Code amendment leading to the change of classification of animals from property to non-property was part of a broader reform of the Code Civil that animal protection groups saw as an opportunity to lobby for the inclusion of such an amendment.
The reform of the Civil Code is challenging in civil law countries such as Nicaragua. However, the French experience shows that thorough research and solid legal propositions, along with the opportunity to use a broad legislative reform as a vehicle, can be useful in making change in the legal status of animals.
Alice DiConcetto
LLM in Animal Law
Lewis & Clark Law School
Port Land Oregon
[1] Art. 520-1 and 521-1: “The unnecessary infliction, in public or otherwise, of serious maltreatment, including sexual maltreatment, towards or the commission of an act of cruelty on any domestic or tame animal, or any animal held in captivity, is punished by two years' imprisonment and a fine of €30,000.” Translation in English available here: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/Traductions/en-English/Legifrance-translations.
[2] Art. L-214-1 Rural Code.
[3] Law nº 2015-177 on the modernization and simplification of law and procedures in the fields of justice and interior affairs, also called “Amendement Glavany”, passed on February 16, 2015.
[4] Law nº 76-629, July 10, 1976 amending the Rural Code.
[5] MARGUÉNAUD JEAN-PIERRE, Une Révolution Théorique: L’extraction Masquée Des Animaux Dans La Catégorie Des Biens, La semaine juridique Edition Générale nº10-11, 9 mars 2015, doctr.305.
[6] Art. 515-14 “Les animaux sont des êtres vivats doués de sensibilité. Sous réserve des lois qui les protègent, les animaux sont soumis au régime des biens.”
[7] Art.516 Tous les biens sont meubles ou immeubles.
[8] MARGUÉNAUD JEAN-PIERRE, Une Révolution Théorique: L’extraction Masquée Des Animaux Dans La Catégorie Des Biens, La semaine juridique Edition Générale nº10-11, 9 mars 2015, doctr.305.
[9] RAPPORT SUR LE REGIME JURIDIQUE DE L’ANIMAL rédigé par Madame Suzanne ANTOINE, Présidente de chambre honoraire à la Cour d’appel de Paris et trésorière de la Ligue française des droits de l’animal, 10 MAI 2005. Available here (in French): http://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/var/storage/rapports-publics/054000297.pdf.
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