16/09/2026
Strangely, a recent decision by the European Court of Human Rights in a matter between two Swiss vegans against the Swiss Government for a breach of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms has a connection with not just Australia but the ADO! Our volunteers have now read the decision and summarised some of the highlights.
The Australian connection? In 2023 Vegan Australia was one of only three organisations allowed to intervene in the case, which had started in 2020. The ADO and law firm Squire Patton Boggs helped prepare Vegan Australia’s written submissions to the Court. In July this year the Court handed down a majority 6-1 judgement in favour of the vegan applicants, and referred to Vegan Australia’s submissions in its reasons (at [106])!
The decision marks an important step in protecting vegans’ rights to make compassionate choices. The two vegan applicants were a prisoner and an involuntary psychiatric patient, and both had to rely on government agencies for their food. Yet the Swiss authorities did not properly consider the vegans’ complaints about the lack of or poor quality of the vegan food, so the vegans took their complaints all the way to the European Human Rights Court.
What did the Court actually decide? Importantly, it held the applicants’ vegan choices were protected by the right to freedom of thought and conscience under Article 9 of the Convention. The Court held that this meant the Swiss authorities had a positive obligation to consider properly the vegans’ grievances about the absence of or poor quality of vegan food while in the Government’s custody and that, when the authorities failed to consider those grievances properly, Switzerland breached the Convention.
So the decision was about the right to have a vegan’s complaint about the lack of vegan food while detained by the State properly dealt with by the State, and not about the right to vegan food per se or the adequacy of the food provided. Those battles are left for another day, but this case is an important step along the way to recognising and protecting compassionate life choices by humans, and one which the ADO is proud to have been part of it❤️
The Court’s decision: https://tinyurl.com/mtjzybv7
Vegan Australia’s article about the decision: https://tinyurl.com/yc7uxz5w
Vegan Australia’s submissions: https://tinyurl.com/3rz7tjdz
