Last week, 53 dogs living in deplorable conditions were seized in Beaumont-sur-Lèze, near Toulouse and then entrusted to the SPA. And, the next day, their owner was given a ten-month suspended prison sentence, along with a ban on keeping an animal for a year. This diligence is an illustration of a new priority for the Toulouse Court of Appeal which, on September 1, created an Environment and Animal Abuse division.
“It is a social issue on which the public prosecutor must act firmly, [le pôle] will make it possible to strengthen the monitoring of procedures, to intervene more quickly and to pronounce appropriate sentences, ”explained to AFP Franck Rastoul, public prosecutor at the Toulouse court of appeal, who will himself supervise the pole. The latter will be competent over the entire jurisdiction of the jurisdiction: in Haute-Garonne therefore but also in Tarn, Ariège and Tarn-et-Garonne. A territory where several recent cases have moved public opinion, such as the case of a dog massacred with an ax or another death tied up in the middle of a heat wave.
Fighting dogs and bears killed in Ariège
“We can no longer deal with this amicably or only in the form of a fine (…) We sometimes have acts of barbarism on animals”, estimates the high magistrate. Dog fights in cities, the trafficking of exotic animals, doping in horse riding, or the conditions of exploitation in circuses or zoos are, among other things, in the crosshairs of the pole. It will also take up violations of the origin of pollution or of the legislation on protected species. The files of the two bears killed in Ariège in 2020 and 2021 are found in particular in his lap.
To punish abuses, specifies Franck Rastoul, the courts will have at their disposal “short circuits and simplified procedures for the least serious cases” and when the facts justify it, “it is necessary to be able to confiscate the animal”, “to hit its owner of a prohibition of detention”.