Chimpanzee Lawsuits Rejected in New York Court

Three U.S. judges have thrown out lawsuits that wanted chimpanzees to be recognized as people with basic rights.

The Nonhuman Rights Project filed three lawsuits in New York on behalf of captive chimpanzees- Tommy, Kiko, Hercules and Leo. The organization wanted the judges to grant the chimpanzees "legal personhood", declaring these chimps to be people with fundamental human rights, AFP reported.

The project wants to shift these chimps to a sanctuary.

All the three judges rejected the lawsuits, saying that Habeas corpus doesn't apply to animals. (Under the Habeas corpus writ freedom from unlawful imprisonment can be sought).

"These were the outcomes we expected," said Steven M. Wise, founder and president of the Nonhuman Rights Project. "All nonhuman animals have been legal things for centuries. That is not going to change easily.

"What we didn't expect were the strong words of encouragement and support from the judges and their acknowledgement of the strength of our arguments. As we always knew we would, we will appeal each decision to the appropriate New York Appellate Divisions. The struggle to attain the personhood of such an extraordinarily cognitively complex nonhuman animal as a chimpanzee has barely begun," Wise added, according to a news release.

Hercules and Leo belong to the New Iberia Research Center and are used to conduct locomotion research. The other chimps- Tommy and Kiko- are old ( about 26 years of age) and are spending their last days in cages.

Experts have long believed that other animals such as elephants and dolphins are quite intelligent and are non-human people. NhRP said that it plans to file lawsuits on behalf of all animals that are "scientifically proven to be autonomous beings."

The rejected lawsuits were filed in the lower courts and will now be moved to the New York Intermediate Appellate Courts.

Are Chimps People?                                                                                                     

In 2008, Paula Stibbe, along with the Vienna-based Association Against Animal Factories (AAAF) wanted a chimp named Matthew Hiasl Pan to be declared as a person.

Joyce Tischler, co-founder of the Animal Legal Defense Fund wrote in her blog that "to be a "legal person," one doesn't need to be a human being or even a biological being."

"A corporation is a legal person. "Legal personhood" is a fiction, used to recognize one who has legal rights and duties. It's one of our most powerful concepts, and American legal history is filled with heated conflicts about whether or not slaves, women, children, Native Americans, corporations, and human fetuses would be considered "legal persons," she wrote.