HK Government plans to amend Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Ordinance.

To improve animal welfare in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Government finally indicated to the LegCo its proposed amendments of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Ordinance (Cap. 169)[1]. This is in response to the public consultation conducted on the same matter by the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department from 26 April 2019 to 31 July 2019, and the Government’s general direction to improve animal welfare in Hong Kong as indicated in the 2018 Policy Address.

In the 2019 public consultation, over 88% of the respondents agreed that animal welfare should be enhanced and supported the proposed amendments to the Ordinance overall. Out of all the proposed enhancements, there was general consensus amongst the respondents that the Government should introduce a positive duty to care to animal owners and to enhance provisions for the prevention of animal cruelty[2]. The Subcommittee to Study Issues Relating to Animal Rights under the LegCo Panel on Food Safety and Environmental Hygiene conducted a meeting on 19 April 2021 to further discuss the issues.

In the information paper submitted by the Government, the Government laid out in detail its proposed amendments, including but not limited to the following:

To introduce a “duty of care” under the Ordinance on persons responsible for animals to provide for their welfare needs (e.g., appropriate nutrition, suitable living environment, the ability to express normal patterns of behaviour and protection from pain, suffering, disease, and injury etc.);
To specify that abandonment of an animal which causes it to suffer is an act of cruelty to animals;
To treat the unlawful administering of poisons to an animal without lawful authority or excuse as an offence of cruelty to animals;
To prohibit unnecessary operations (e.g., tail docking, ear cropping, debarking, and declawing) on animals unless the same is performed by a veterinary surgeon in the interest of animal welfare;
To introduce an indictable offence in cases of serious animal cruelty, with no specific time bar for the prosecution of the same and a substantial increase in penalties; and
To empower the courts to disqualify a person convicted of the offence of animal cruelty or breach of duty of care from keeping animals within a specified period or permanently.

The LegCo Paper indicated that the Food and Health Bureau is currently “pressing ahead with the drafting of the legislation and seeking the advice of the Department of Justice on the details and provisions of the amendment bill”. It is said that the proposed bill will be submitted to the LegCo “in the next term for deliberation as soon as possible”.

These major improvements in the law had long been called for. Whilst the public express a clear view to increasing the penalties and scope of animal cruelty offences, and rightly so, the introduction of the tortious concept of “duty of care” into the realm of Hong Kong animal law might be a breakthrough quite alien to Hong Kong practitioners. Under the common law, animals had been categorized as personal property, with some animals having unequal legal status compared to others[3]. With them not being recognized as legal persons as such, protections to their welfare mainly comes from statutes requiring owners or persons responsible for the animals to discharge certain positive duty of care to the animals in question.

HKALPO had been advocating for the introduction of the concept of positive duty of care on keepers of animals. In our latest submissions on the amendment to the Ordinance, we have indicated that such duties were imposed on animal keepers in New Zealand and the UK as early as 1999 and 2006 respectively[4], while the Hong Kong Ordinance still largely follows the old statutory framework of the Protection of Animals Act 1911. We are happy to see and will unreservedly support the amendments of the Ordinance in promoting the welfare of animals.

Courtesy of Felix Tsang

Main Sources: SCMP, Hong Kong Animal Post