EU court consultant says countries should not be allowed to ban kosher and halal meat

The advocate general of the Court of Justice of the European Union advises the court to prohibit governments from banning kosher and halal slaughter.

The advice by Gerard Hogan is “an important development that could spell the end of attempts to ban shechitah in the entire European Union,” Hans Knoop, a spokesperson for the Forum of Jewish Organizations in Belgium, tells the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, using the Hebrew word for ritual slaughter.

Shechitah,which involves slashing the animal’s throat with a very sharp knife, and the Muslim variant, Dbiha, preclude stunning the animal before the slaughter. Animal welfare activists find this cruel. Opponents of Muslim immigration and of Jewish presence in Europe also protest ritual slaughter, sometimes citing animal welfare arguments.

The Luxembourg-based court “should find that Member States are not permitted to adopt rules” […] for a prohibition of the slaughter of animals without stunning,” Hogan says, responding to a lawsuit last year by several Jewish groups from Belgium after two of the three autonomous states that make up the federal kingdom of Belgium banning slaughter without stunning.

— JTA