[HPforGrownups] Re: WW justice was re I don't expect a complete bloodbath and a Question

[Maria Kirilenko]

No: HPFGUIDX 49446


I wrote:

> 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. 

Elkins replied:

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.

Me: 

I agree with you that the use of dementors qualifies as torture, but we don't know if anything of anyone else can constrain prisoners. IMO it depends on the nature of spell-casting, i.e whether you can do it without a wand. If you can't cast good spells without one, like Rowling says, then a wizard convict would be equal to a Muggle convict, and dementors are really unnecessary. But if Rowling is wrong (I'm not getting into a canon/not canon debate here), maybe there really isn't another way to control the convicts.

I am by no means defending this jail system, just giving possible reasons for why it could exist. 

Actually, this brings me to another idea that I just came up with... Magic is magic, and nobody really knows where it starts and where it ends, so the ability to cast wandless spells is probably not explored enough. OK, Rowling says that you can't cast good spells without wands, but since there obviously are forms of wandless magic like Lily's sacrifice, phoenix tears and all "magical animals magic," we don't know what can happen in extreme circumstances, what powers a wizard could discover in himself.

Elkins also said:

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.  

I was always really confused on this point. Hagrid didn't even finish school... I see this as proof of Fudge's total incompetence and pitifulness (is that a word?) as well as evidence to support the fact that everything is totally and completely wrong in the WW. Of course, Hagrid is accused of setting a monster on students... Maybe sending people to Azkaban to wait for the trial is standard procedure? It is rather cruel to those who haven't been proven guilty (as well as to those who have been proven guilty), anyway.

Maria



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