Los animales como sujetos del derecho : ¿Es procedente la reforma al Código Civil?.

Abstract

Although, for a long time, animals have been part of the daily life of human beings and although those have acquired certain rights under the Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador of 2008, our Civil Code still considers the animal as a semoviente. On October 30, 2014, a bill called the Organic Law of Animal Welfare was presented in order to raise awareness among Ecuadorians about the rights and defense of animals; however, this project is still being processed, and consequently, article 585 of the Civil Code cannot be reformed, in which animals are considered furniture that can be transported from one place to another. Little is known about how animals came to be considered as semovientes, since the main development of Roman law is based on people. Everything that was not a person fell into the definition of "thing", and although it is true that, the legal wisdom of the Romans has followed us for several centuries, the reality is that in the 21st century animals have not only been subject to physical abuse or indiscriminate death, but have also been used as part of shows which, many times, include until his death. Ecuador is a constitutional state of rights and justice, with a fixed look at neo-constitutionalism, therefore, it must ensure compliance and protection of all those who have been qualified as subjects of the law in the Constitution, therefore, beyond a legal analysis of the law, this thesis develops the constitutional vision towards animals, which implies not only the development of protection norms, but also the need to develop a legal framework that considers them subjects of law.