The First Section of the Veneto Regional Administrative Court rejected the appeal presented by League for the Abolition of the Hunt ed National Animal Protection Authority regarding the regulation of the province of Vicenza for the hunting surveillance. These rules were approved in 2012 and according to the two associations there were at least six reasons to cancel them.
First of all, LAC and ENPA would have considered the Province of Vicenza, in addition to the impossibility for this local authority to extend its powers to hunting surveillance. The animal welfare associations then challenged the illegitimacy of article 2 of the regulation, that on voluntary security guards and their appointment, the failure to include those of the environmental associations, the residence in the Vicenza area to become a guard and the failure to contemplate the zoophile guards. The administrative judges have dismantled all these reasons.
In fact, for the TAR the Province is competent, as well as the requirement of residence in the province of Vicenza. Furthermore, even if no reference is made to environmental associations and their guards, it was never the intention of the regulation to exclude members of the LAC. The appeal was therefore rejected and the two associations will have to reimburse the judicial costs (approx 2mila euros), in addition to ancillary charges.