By Wendy Anders

After the new animal welfare law approved by the Costa Rican legislature in July was given a thumbs down by the Costa Rican Constitutional Court (Sala IV), legislators regrouped to revise the law’s text.

The changes, which mainly included lowering the fines and prison terms in the original version, were accepted unanimously by the committee in charge of drafting the bill.

The bill will now return to the floor of the Legislative Assembly to be passed, and hopefully soon, enacted into law, reported Costa Rican media this week.

The fine for owners who don’t scoop up their animal’s messes has been lowered to reflect 1/4 of a base administrative salary, which currently calculates as between 106,000 and 212,000 colones.

Prison terms for animal cruelty were reduced from six months to two years in the original bill, down to a three-month minimum and a maximum of one year.

Penalties for killing an animal likewise were reduced in the new version of the bill, and are proposed as a three-month minimum to a two-year maximum, down from the original six months to three years.

Ronny Salas Monge, of the National Liberation Party who is opposed to such sanctions, said the changes “do not make me happy.”