Animal in Private Law

An animal is a living creature and recently some civil codes treated it as a special legal object differing from things. Nevertheless, animals are object of the property and to them shall apply mutatis mutandis common rules for things, unless otherwise provided by law. The author describes some special rules that have been established in the German, Austrian and Swiss law and analyzes probable solutions in such cases in Slovenian law. There are a few special provisions in the property law. Particular emphasis is only a restriction of property rights of the owner of the animals to be in their practices to comply with the provisions of the ban on animal cruelty. The more interesting problems are open in some other areas. The pet may be subject to a joint property of the spouses or members of partnerships. At the termination of the community, a question may be raised, to whom of them the pet at the separation belongs. In inheritance law, the pet could be object of inheritance. In torts the form of compensation in cases where the treatment of the animals significantly exceeds its value is a central problem.