HP and the democratic equilibrium(Re: Umbridge, brooms and DEs)

[Ali]

No: HPFGUIDX 87110

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "J.O. Williams" <jow at w...> 
wrote:
 
> Taking away equipment that you yourself paid for is theft.  
Umbridge can't steal equipment that doesn't belong to Hogwarts.

Ali disagrees:-

Theft in English Law involves "dishonest appropriation of another 
property with the intention to permanently deprive"

It is not dishonest if Umbridge had the legal authority to do it. 
Certainly, British pupils would expect their teachers to confiscate 
property that they owned at school. Nor has Umbridge appropriated 
the broom for herself. She has stopped Harry from using it though.

My understanding of school "confiscation" was that the teachers 
returned the items back at the end of the term - or the year. My 
dictionary definition is different, as it defines confiscation 
as "seized by authority or summariliy" (or appropriate to the public 
treasury, but although that is how the word derives from the Latin, 
it is hardly relevant here). 

Given that Umbridge kept the brooms in her office, and then later in 
the dungeons, I believed that although Harry  would be unable to use 
it, he was still considered the owner of his broom. the broom would 
not be used by or appropriated by anybody else.

I believe it is arguable whether Umbridge would have kept Harry's 
broom after he had left Hogwarts.

I had several items confiscated at school, as did many of my 
friends. Yes, it did annoy us, but never would I have considered it 
to be theft. I think it is simply another example of JKR applying 
British school culture to her Potterverse, a culture which is of 
course foreign to many readers.

Ali