On animal welfare, Malta is falling behind, rather than being a leader in the protection of animals, with efforts having weakened over recent years. The animal welfare impact of all policy decisions must be taken into consideration if the country is to continue to be a force for raising standards in this area.

A case some time ago of exotic animals found living in poor conditions in Naxxar and the government's response thereto clearly demonstrates the government's lack of planning and vision when it comes to animal welfare. Worse, many shortcomings related to animal welfare have led to a situation where it is unable to enforce the law to ensure animal well-being.

The law is supposed to be there to ensure that all types of animals are given everything necessary to guarantee a better quality of life, both physically and psychologically. The Animal Welfare Act (Chapter 439) was enacted in 2002 to establish and consolidate the protection and well-being of animals kept for work, sports, shows, commercial reasons, companionship, food, conservation, education, private collections, medical reasons and experimentation.

Many have decried the government's underenforcement of animal welfare legislation because of the direct negative effects on animal interests. Such underenforcement has a much stronger societal effect because it undermines the rule of law, regardless of whether we have the interests of animals at the front of our minds, as it is a matter that should concern us all.

Recalling how our Constitution demands that the law recognise and uphold human rights, it is easy to envisage a thick and expansive conception of the rule of law that also demands recognition of animal rights or rights of all living beings. There is, after all, a strong and persistent movement in favour of fighting for specific rights of animals.

A similar, but different, substantive value to the recognition and protection of animals' dignity within the rule of law is to recognise animals as vulnerable and that a commitment to the rule of law demands a protection of that vulnerability. We should value animals not for their proximity to humans but, instead, because of their vulnerable and precarious lives.

Any sensible and coherent theory of animal rights should focus on just one right for animals, the right not to be treated as the property of humans.

In reality, however, there is no animal welfare legislation that protects the rights of life and liberty, let alone preventing animals from having property status, because animal welfare legislation is predicated on animals having this status, of humans having the capacity to own, use and kill non-human animals. Indeed, it is difficult to categorise animal welfare legislation as containing any rights at all.

Still, there have even been some advances in that field, with habeas corpus applications finding some success in Colombia and Argentina by extending the human right of liberty to captive animals.

Animals' current legal protections in our current animal welfare legislation may meet the minimal conceptual criteria for rights, but they do not perform the characteristic normative function of rights. They are, therefore, at best atypically weak and have imperfect rights.

Two years ago, the Ministry for Animal Rights unveiled a threeyear plan for animal welfare reforms that led to legislation to regulate zoos and another allowing dangerous animals to be used in the film industry, allowing also for lethal weapons to be present during filming in case the animals get aggressive.

Despite such legislation, the Commissioner for Animal Welfare and the Association for Abandoned Animals both expressed their concern about how lax enforcement of animal cruelty laws seems to be.

Animal welfare is not a zero-sum game in which human interests are pitted against the interests of other animals. It is about promoting our common interest. There is a deep human need to positively relate to other animals and treat them with care and respect. Good laws and regulations are part of how we can achieve this.

Animal welfare legislation is still lacking in certain sectors that have not yet caught our legislators' eyes.

Take farming, for example. In the case of agriculture, animal welfare improvements are a "win-winwin": animals benefit, consumers benefit and frontline producers benefit. Maltese farmers who are working with animals on a day-today basis want to be supported in maintaining high welfare standards. They don't want a race to the bottom in which they are forced to compromise on welfare in the name of efficiency. They want a stable livelihood but don't want to put profit before welfare.

From another aspect, genome editing and selective breeding lead to terrible welfare problems.

Again, animals often get overlooked in policymaking. Policies receive environmental impact assessments but never animal welfare impact assessments.

Moreover, we must move with the times and emulate good practices abroad. For example, welfare risk sensors are being developed to detect emerging health and welfare problems such as lameness and mastitis in dairy cows and to catch avian influenza outbreaks early.

The dignity of animals means their interests are relevant to how the government decides to enforce legislation that affects those interests. Systemic underenforcement of animal welfare legislation is a signal from the government that it undervalues the interests of animals and means that offending against animals is often undetected and unprosecuted. This maligning of their interests in this way is an affront to their dignity.