The Government has also stated that there are a wide range of circumstances in which an animal might be found to be suffering (or likely to suffer if its circumstances do not change) and taken into possession under section 32 of the 2006 Act, including situations where the owner might not be at fault or have committed a crime e.g. due to illness.
A letter from Mairi Gougeon MSP - Minister for Rural Affairs and the Natural Environment to the ECCLR Committee on 24 October 2019 described that the legal basis of the requirement for compensation to be paid where animals are taken into possession by authorities, is Article 1 of Protocol 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights, under which every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of the person’s possessions, and no one is to be deprived of these except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law.