Animal Advocates Urge Councillors To Act Within The law

Animal advocates have cautioned Wellington City councillors that they need to act within the law when considering the mandatory microchipping of the capital's Cats.

An independent legal opinion obtained from one of New Zealand's leading public and constitutional law firms has highlighted the fact that the Wellington City Council has no legal authority for mandating microchipping, or for restricting Cat numbers. This will be critical for councillors deciding how to vote on the Cat provisions contained in the Animal Bylaw, which is being voted on this coming Thursday.

The legal basis for the council's proposed restrictions on Cats is extremely tenuous, The legal opinion we've obtained shows that the council simply can't mandate microchipping. There are four major legal issues identified with the council's proposed bylaw.

Firstly, there has been a lack of evidence and a basic error of law made by the council. They have not produced any substantive evidence that Cats are causing the problems they're being accused of. The evidence the council has used, a couple of reprinted newspaper articles, neither of which was about Wellington, and a single misleading small-scale survey simply don't meet the standards needed to formulate public policy in the 21st Century.

Secondly, the restrictions on Cats are being put in place by the council for an improper purpose, that is the protection of wildlife. This is very apparent from the council's statement of proposal and consultation documents, and public statements from mayor Celia Wade-Brown and Councillors Pannett, Free and Foster.

Simply put, councils lack the legal powers to protect wildlife, which makes the bylaw ultra vires, or 'beyond the law'. The council need to act within the framework provided by Parliament, rather than thinking it can pursue its own agenda.

Thirdly, it's apparent that the use of an onerous bylaw to restrict the rights of the 52% of Wellington households that have a Cat has been predetermined. The council had the option to work with other organisations like the SPCA to educate those who keep Cats, but instead pre-emptively wrote off a voluntary approach.

The result is that those who keep Cats will be hit with millions of dollars of unnecessary compliance costs. Councils are meant to assess all options fairly, but they’ve failed to do so in this case.

Fourthly, the council has failed to demonstrate that these costly and invasive measures will even fix the problems they're claiming. As has been pointed out in several of the written submissions, even if, despite the lack of evidence, the council think that Cats create a nuisance or a health issue, it's not apparent how microchipping them will resolve the issues they’re claiming.

We're therefore suggesting that councillors will need to tread very carefully when they vote on the Animal Bylaw on Thursday.

Councillor Pannet was quoted in a media article dated 12 March 2016 as stating "Essentially having the identification means we won't be trapping, and potentially putting a Cat down if it is caught, our staff will know that it is a Cat owned by someone".

Thus it is clear the core intent of compulsory microchipping is one of facilitating the mass execution of all Cats who do not have the ID chip. Given the council only has five animal control officers, we are concerned the council may outsource the nefarious activity of trapping and mass execution of Cats to amateur environmental groups.

Like many other groups, we're strong advocates for the protection of native wildlife, and for responsible behavior by those who keep domestic animals. However, the council's bylaw is ill-conceived and lacks legal standing. Our recommendation is therefore that measures like microchipping should be voluntary, supported by public education campaigns, and delivered through existing animal welfare organisations such as the SPCA and the Cat's Protection League. To persist with mandatory microchipping will mean that the council will be exposed to legal challenge, with all the costs to ratepayers and reputational damage that can result.

The opinion, written by Mai Chen, Managing Partner of Chen Palmer Partners, and Adjunct Professor of the Faculty of Law at the University of Auckland was commissioned by animal advocates after concerns about the legality and intent of the Wellington City Council’s proposed changes to the Animal Bylaw.

ENDS

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