Hunt and control. The Council of State clarifies the competences of the Zoophile Guards with its own sentence to the appeal of the League for the abolition of the Hunting with which they asked for the annulment of the decrees of the Prefecture of Turin in the part in which they limit the competence of the voluntary zoophile guards to the vigilance addressed only to pets; according to these prefectoral decrees, the Zoophile Guards who contravened their contents by carrying out different tasks could fall back into violations of the law and excess of power.
The purpose of the LAC was to grant zoophilic surveillance officers the assignment of the supervisory function for the prevention and repression of the infringements provided for by the general and local regulations relating to the protection of animals and the defense of livestock, within the limits of national and regional laws in matter, in practice the possibility of controlling and possibly sanctioning i hunters.
After a first rejection of the Piedmont Regional Administrative Court with sentence no. 1315 of 14 August 2015, the animal rights activists had filed an appeal, pointing to the "wrong" interpretation by the Administration in interpreting art. 6, second paragraph, of law no. 20 of 2004 July 189, pursuant to which "the supervision of compliance with this law and other rules relating to the protection of animals is also entrusted, with regard to pets, within the limits of tasks assigned by the respective prefectural decrees of appointment, pursuant to articles 55 and 57 of the criminal procedure code, to the special sworn guards of recognized protectionist and zoophile associations ".
Furthermore, according to LAV, the limiting interpretation of their possibility of action is in contrast with art. 5 of the Presidential Decree of 31 March 1979, n. 6, according to which, "without prejudice to the qualification of security guards, the zoophile guards having the qualification of public security agents lose this last qualification and may be used voluntarily and free of charge by single or associated municipalities and mountain communities for the prevention and repression of infringements of general and local regulations relating to the protection of animals and the defense of livestock ”.
Nevertheless, given the current legislation, the judges have admitted the possibility that zoophile guards collaborate with the administrations but do not at all admit them to carry out generalized protection activities in favor of species other than those classified as pets.
In conclusion, - it is explained in the sentence - the proposed appeal is found to be unfounded, and must be rejected thus not admitting the competence of the Zoophile Guards to autonomous surveillance activities and in any case always and only in the field of competence of pets. The ENPA zoophile guards are obviously also subject to this ruling, who for years have enjoyed a sort of tacit approval.
the sentence not being in joint chambers can only be cataloged as an opinion, but which can be overturned as has already happened recently, by other judicial chambers, it is therefore the exclusive task of the Legislator to provide clarity on the legislation and not the judge who provides its interpretation.