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

[Shaun Hately]

No: HPFGUIDX 87146

On 15 Dec 2003 at 21:34, Geoff Bannister wrote:

> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Ali" <Ali at z...> wrote:
>  
> Ali:
> > Theft in English Law involves "dishonest appropriation of another 
> > property with the intention to permanently deprive"
> 
> Geoff:
> Precisely.
>  
> Ali:
> > 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.
> > 
> 
> Geoff:
> There is also English law about taking away property without the 
> owner's consent.

Which generally would not apply to a teacher in a private school 
temporarily depriving a student of their property while acting in 
loco parentis.

> I wonder whether Umbridge does have the legal authority to do it. 
> British pupils might possibly expect things to be confiscated, but as 
> I said in a previous post, in my own experience of 32 years in the 
> state sector, I never kept anything beyond the end of the week at 
> most because confiscated items usually got in the way, There is also 
> a distinct difference between a catapult or a water pistol or a 
> farting cushion and a Firebolt, which is the Porsche of the broom 
> world, highly expensive and rare (and even a Walkman in the real 
> world). I have known of cases locally where I now live where parents 
> have arrived in high dudgeon because a mobile phone has been taken 
> and have threatened legal action.

Umbridge almost certainly does have that legal authority - she 
certainly does under traditional British Common Law - we can't know 
for certain with Wizarding Law, but I don't see any reason to doubt 
Hogwarts teachers have less powers than British teachers 
traditionally did.

In loco parentis is an *incredibly* powerful Common Law principle - 
and was even more so in the past. A teacher under British Common 
Law did have virtually the full powers of a parent over their 
students.

(I'm simplifying here, yes).

I was at a boarding school in the early 1990s - and teachers could 
*and did* temporarily (up to a term generally - you could often get 
it back earlier by behaving yourself and then begging after a few 
weeks) valuable property as a disciplinary measure. Generally 
speaking, that property had something to do with the behaviour - 
but the closest equivalent we had to brooms were the bikes some of 
us had, and these were quite commonly locked up - more or less as a 
way of restricting your activities.

If Umbridge had taken action to *permanently deprive* Harry of the 
broom, by disposing of it, or selling it, or something similar, 
she'd have crossed a real line - but short of that, I'm fairly sure 
she was acting perfectly legally - she would have been in a normal 
British boarding school - and I suspect Hogwarts has even less 
concern for their students rights in those areas.



Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200 
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
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