Jews in New Zealand have won a temporary exemption from a new legal requirement that animals must first be stunned before being slaughtered. Representatives of the Jewish community last week filed legal proceedings against Agriculture Minister David Carter and on Monday said said a Wellington court had ordered a temporary exemption until the case is decided next year. New Zealand Jewish Council chairman Geoff Levy described it as “a positive outcome” for the 7,000-member Jewish community.
Carter had announced in May that he was requiring pre-slaughter stunning for all commercial killing of livestock. About 300 lambs and 2000 chickens were commercially slaughtered according to 'shechita' last year. The minister later apologized to the Jewish community for any offense caused when he told veterinarians: "We may have upset a relatively small religious minority, and I do appreciate their strong feelings for this issue, but frankly I don't think any animal should suffer in the slaughter process."
More than half New Zealand's sheep are killed by halal slaughtermen for the Islamic market, by cutting the throats of electrically stunned animals. However, shechita slaughter requires the trachea, oesophagus, carotid arteries and jugular veins to be cut using a sharp blade to allow the blood to drain out. The animal cannot be stunned or unconscious.
The New Zealand National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee first recommended a dispensation for the kosher slaughter in 2001, but most recently said it would prefer there were no exemptions from the requirement that all animals slaughtered commercially were first stunned. It said there was evidence calves which simply had their throats cut experienced pain, and it had the "strongly held" view that the cattle, sheep, goats and possibly poultry would experience similar pain.
Wellington Jewish Council Chairman David Zwartz predicted the case would be argued on the grounds that the Bill of Rights allowed for freedom of religious practice, and the requirement for stunning was an infringement of the right of Jews to observe their religion.
Other countries to ban shechita include Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, and the European Parliament earlier this year voted in favor of a new regulation which could lead to kosher meat being labeled as "meat from slaughter without stunning".
