EUROPEAN HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL

On February 2007, in an Austrian Tribunal, it was presented a demand to designate legal custody to chimpanzee Mathew Hiasl Pan, who was in an animal refugee in Vienna and had an amount of money donated for him available. But the money could only be used if he had his right recognized legally and he could designate a tutor or person in charge in our society. Mathew is 18 years old and was caught by poachers when he was a one-year baby in Sierra Leone. He was taken to Austria to be used in medical research and then he was confiscated.

As the Austrian Justice System, in different levels, did not make to one decision, his lawyer, Dr. Martin Balluch, took his request to Strasburg European Human Rights Tribunal. At the same time, another request in the same tribunal was presented by Paula Stibbe, who assumed the legal representation of Matthew.

Paula declared: “Everyone who knows Mathew Hiasl Pan see him as a person. At his home, in African Forest, He could have taken care of himself with no need of human custody. But, as long as he was kidnapped and transferred to a hostile environment, traumatized and locked in a enclosure, I considered that it was necessary to assume his representation in order to save the money that was donated and avoid his deportation. As long there is no other persons, I am acting as his closest person.”

The eminent jurist Mag. Eberhart Theuer, who helps Paula and Mathews, affirmed: “A similar representation to emergency situations has already been accepted before in cases in European Human Rights Tribunal, especially when people who can not express for themselves need to have their rights protected.”

GAP Project Europe and International support this action, just like the case of the Habeas Corpus ordered in favor of chimpanzee Jimmy, of Niterói zoo.

Those who wish to support this action must communicate with European Human Rights Commissioner, Mr.Thomas Hammarberg, by e-mail – commissioner@coe.int – wrtting something similar to this message:

Subject: Please grant chimpanzee Matthew “Hiasl” Pan legal personhood.

Dear Mr Hammarberg,

I am writing to beseech you to recommend the European Court of Human Rights to accord the chimpanzee Matthew Hiasl Pan legal personhood.

Today we know enough about chimpanzees and other great apes to conclude that they possess intellectual and emotional abilities that qualify them as persons, as they fulfill all the requirements that the definition of person entails.

You may also be aware that the Spanish Parliament has recently become the first in the world to pass a resolution that effectively grants all members of great ape species the rights to life, liberty and bodily integrity, which shall all be enshrined in the Spanish Law.

By not granting great apes legal personhood, we are allowing these sensitive persons to be treated as property, unprotected from enslavement and torture.

Furthermore, Matthew “Hiasl” Pan needs to be regarded as a legal person in order to be possible for him to be granted the legal guardian he needs to safeguard his future.

I urge you to accord Matthew the legal consideration that corresponds to what he already is by nature: a person who was kidnapped from his home in Sierra Leone, brought to Europe illegally and against his will and brutally separated at a very early age from his mother, family and friends.

A person who has already suffered greatly and who needs a legal guardian so that he can live the rest of his life in peace.

Please be inspired by the Spanish precedent and grant Matthew “Hiasl” Pan legal personhood.

Yours sincerely,

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