WW justice was re I don't expect a complete bloodbath and a Question

[ssk7882 <skelkins@attbi.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 49442

Sirius' Trial (or lack thereof):

Maria wondered if we should take Sirius' claim that he never
received a trial literally.

Ali replied:

> I do believe that Sirius did not have a trial, and that his word 
> can be taken literally.
>
> In PoA, Dumbledore tells Harry and Hermione:
>
> "I myself gave evidence to the Minstry that Sirius had been the 
> Potters' Secret-Keeper". P.287 UK Hardback edition
>
> That phrasing is not conclusive evidence that Dumbledore testified 
> in a trial, as he could have been giving evidence that was then 
> never acted upon. 

I agree.  It is also very similar to the phrasing that Dumbledore
uses at Karkaroff's hearing to refer to his vouching for Snape: 
"I have given evidence already on this matter."

Karkaroff's hearing is not a trial.  No jury is present, nor do
we see any members of the public or the press in the room, unlike
the trials of Bagman and the Pensieve Four.  It would seem to be some 
sort of special tribunal, held in camera. Crouch refers to it as 
a "council" and specifies that it was "by *this* council" (emphasis 
mine) that Snape was also cleared.  

I assume that both Sirius' case and Snape's were discussed by that
smaller council, but that neither of them ever stood trial. 

In fact, it has always somewhat surprised me that Sirius doesn't
harbor more bitterness towards Dumbledore for having exerted so
little apparent effort on his behalf.  Frankly, I think that I'd 
feel a mite bit grudgy about that, if I were Sirius Black.


Wizarding Conceptions of Human Rights:

Maria went on to say:

> Besides, I don't see this use of truth potions as morally 
> acceptable. We don't know anything about the WW Constitution, 
> but I assume it contains all the basic civil rights, which 
> IMHO should prohibit the use of truth potions in trials. 

Well, I agree with your evaluation of the moral rectitude of the 
use of truth potions, but (leaving aside the question of whether 
or not wizarding UK even *has* a constitution, which I rather 
assume that it does not), I see no reason to believe that the 
wizarding world would share our scruples on this point.  After 
all, the use of the dementors as prison guards is *far* more 
morally reprehensible than the use of truth potions, IMO.  In 
fact, under the guidelines currently adopted by the EU, as well
as by the Human Rights Commission, it would technically qualify 
as torture, which is...er, well, a rather *serious* human rights 
violation, let us just say.  Yet Dumbledore's belief that use of 
the dementors is unacceptable seems to be dismissed as eccentricity 
by both Fudge and Moody, and Dumbledore himself does not phrase
his objections to the practice in terms of our Muggle conception 
of human rights at all.

Ali wrote:

> I don't know that it would be safe to assume that the WW has a 
> constitution or whether it has what we think of as basic civil 
> rights. . . .

Well, from the nature of Sirius' account of Crouch's regime, I 
think that it is safe to assume that the WW does at least more
or less share our *conception* of civil rights.  Sirius speaks 
of Crouch's measures as if they represented a suspension of 
civil liberties that members of the WW ordinarily do view as 
something akin to "rights of citizenship." 

What precisely the WW considers "normal" civil liberties, however,
or even "basic human rights," is unclear.  My assumption based on
the society as it is presented in the canon is that the WW likely
has considerably fewer protections placed on civil liberties than 
its muggle analogue does, and may well not adhere to *precisely* 
the same conception of "rights" that we do, but that it is 
nonetheless more or less culturally congruent with Muggle UK -- in
other words, that it is less scrupulous/protective, rather than
utterly culturally distinct.  The designation of the Unforgivable 
Curses as the spells carrying the most severe penalty under law, for 
example, as well as the specification of both Memory Charms and 
veritaserum as types of magic restricted or controlled by the 
government, does imply to my mind that the WW's understanding 
of "human rights" is based in the same fundamental principles 
as our own.

Ali:

> Sirius tells us that he was not the only person 
> flung into Azkaban without a trial. This suggests the suspension 
> of Habeas Corpus on at least a temporary basis. This is perhaps 
> not dissimilar to the use of internment during wartime, but it 
> is the suspension of a basic human right.

Yes.  It would seem that Crouch suspended Habeas Corpus, but that
before he did so, it did exist as a fundamental civil right within
the wizarding world.  When Sirius tells the Trio that he was 
imprisoned without benefit of trial, not only the Muggle-raised 
Hermione and Harry, but also the Muggle-ignorant Ron, respond with 
shock and amazement.

On this subject, though, one of the more disturbing of the many 
hints the text gives us that the WW's judicial system is deeply 
flawed, to my mind, is not anything from GoF, but rather, Hagrid's 
imprisonment in CoS.  Unlike the Pensieve scenes, Sirius' conviction 
without trial, or the authorization of the Dementor's Kiss to be used 
on him after his escape from prison, Hagrid's "protective custody" is 
happening in the current day, not in a time of war, and not in regard 
to someone already condemned (justly or not) to life imprisonment for 
a violent crime.  

The implication as I read it is that the WW *does* have a conception
of right of Habeas Corpus, that Crouch suspended it in response to 
the crisis of Voldemort's rise, but that it was never reinstated 
as a legal necessity even after the crisis had passed.

Most disturbing, that.  

On a number of levels.


Elkins 

who can get just a little bit *paranoid* on the subject of habeas 
corpus.