Animals provide humans with economic benefits but are also living beings. From a perspective of respect for life, it is necessary to restrict indiscriminate slaughtering of animals that are not livestock raised for consumption.
Article 8 (1) of the current Animal Protection Act prohibits the killing of animals by using cruel methods, etc. However, critics point out that this description is abstract and unclear as to which methods of slaughter are prohibited, resulting in the provision having little effect as grounds for enforcement.
Consequently, an owner or keeper of a non-livestock animal who arbitrarily slaughters the animal is not punishable by law unless he or she has committed an act prohibited by Article 8 (1) of the Animal Protection Act. As a result, if a companion animal that is not usually raised for consumption is slaughtered or processed and distributed for consumption, the provisions of the Animal Protection Act and Livestock Products Sanitary Control Act do not apply, leaving a blind spot in legislation.
Accordingly, this Amendment modifies the method of regulating animal slaughter and prohibits the arbitrary killing of animals as a general rule, while allowing animals to be killed under limited circumstances, such as where animals have been slaughtered or culled in accordance with legal provisions such as the Livestock Products Sanitary Control Act or Act on the Prevention of Contagious Animal Diseases, or where inevitable to prevent threats to the lives or physical safety of humans, thereby aiming to prevent the indiscriminate slaughter of animals and establish a principle of respect for life.

Details

A. Prohibit the killing of animals as a general rule, and specify exceptions where slaughtering is allowed in the subparagraphs (Article 8, paragraph 1).
B. Require methods that minimize suffering to be used in the exceptional cases where slaughtering is allowed in accordance with the subparagraphs of Article 8, paragraph 1, and delete provisions concerning methods of slaughter in cases where it is unavoidable to kill an animal (Article 10).
C. Change the penal provisions for animal abuse to apply to “cases where an animal has been killed or abused” (Article 46, paragraph 2, subparagraph 1).

Animals shall not be killed by any person; provided that this shall not apply in any of the following circumstances (Article 8, paragraph 1).