No justice

[maria_kirilenko]

No: HPFGUIDX 56614

Ok, I'm not going to argue that the WW justice is really just, but I 
want to address some points Ffred (and others) made.

Ffred wrote:

>It's certainly a sinister picture. The fact that the aurors were 
>given the
>power to use unforgivable spells is another example. It appears very
>strongly that "justice" in the WW is arbitrary and things like 
>the "rule of
>law" that we are familiar with just don't exist there.

Well... The thing is, the Aurors were given permission to use the 
Unforgivables by Barty Crouch, who practically took over wizarding 
England. We don't even know the name of the Minister of Magic from 
that period, and Crouch certainly looks like he had usurped all power 
then. Couple that with the war-time mentality, when everyone was 
panicking, and the justice system becomes a parody of itself.

Ron doesn't sound like he thinks that sending Sirius off to Azkaban 
without a trial was normal, so I assume that things are better now 
than they were in 1981. 

>But it also fits (I think) with the kind of world that JKR has 
>drawn. In a
>bureaucracy, bureaucratic justice, arbitrary, authoritarian,
>unchallengeable, is the way that justice would be. In a society 
>where the
>only apparent executive check on the bureaucracy is a congress of 
>wizards,
>the only form of hearing would naturally be the kind of tribunal we 
>saw in
>the pensieve.

Yes, but that was 13 years ago. We don't know how it is now. In fact, 
judging by people's attitude to Crouch's actions during Ludo Bagman's 
trial, they had stopped condoning his method of doing justice the 
moment everything seemed to settle down.

>Although we only get glimpses of the government of the WW, it's one 
>of the
>things that fascinates me: much darker and more threatening than the
>"cosier" aspects like the pictures of home life at the Burrow,

Yes. It is a shocking contrast. When someone asks me if I'd like to 
live in the WW, I first think of Hogwarts and the Weasleys', but then 
I think of the MoM. And answer in the negative. 

I shudder to think what will happen in OoP. Fudge is such an idiot. 

Maria