A note on law: (relates to WW Vs. MW)

[i_karkaroff]

No: HPFGUIDX 46116

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Christopher Nuttall" 
<christopher_g_nuttall at h...> wrote:
> Now, if the MW government knows about the WW, they can't change 
their laws to reflect this, because they'll be laughing stocks.  More 
to the point, how can they catch a fully trained wizard?  I don't 
think they can.  

I believe that this is where the various Ministries, or equivalent 
agencies would step in.  Remember, the chief function of the English 
Ministry of Magic is to suppress information about the WW getting 
into the MW.  Necessarily, part of this suppression is to strictly 
control magic that could affect the perceptions of the MW - they 
could not allow a magical criminal to hare about the country, having 
a grand old time, because sooner or later, those pesky Muggles would 
start to catch on.  And supporting the Ministry is a core of Aurors, 
Obliviators and Unspeakables and the various departments, which 
manage magic, so it's unlikely that it should find itself entirely 
unable to cope with tracking a criminal using magical means.  

In Sirius Black's case – the only 'criminal' that readily springs to 
mind – the Ministry wasn't able to find his hiding spots in the 
Muggle world, precisely because he was avoiding the use of magic.  A 
regular criminal, say, a thief, would be using magic rather 
frequently.

>Now, its possibly that the effect that magic has upon technology is 
>refected when there's enough technology around, but we don't know 
>that.  

While that's an interesting possibility, I don't see anything in the 
text, as of yet, to suggest such a reversal.  If technology precluded 
the use of magic, as magic does for tech, than wouldn't this have 
been noted, say in a large Muggle city with a concentration of tech?  
Surely if this were true, then magic would be inaccessible in London.

~ MartianHousecat