Skewed Justice (was Draco's crime)

[kiricat4001]

No: HPFGUIDX 128907

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "phoenixgod2000" <jmrazo at h...> 
wrote:
 I think Amy's post brings up a good point 
> when she says that the whole thing is oddly formal for the simple 
> putting down of an animal.  there was a criminal trial with lawyers 
> and witnesses and everything else you would attribute to a human 
> criminal trial. The man who did it was an executioner and the 
> Minister of magic himself showed up to preside over it. Prime 
> minister is kind of an important job and you would think that he 
> would have something better to do than show up at what basically 
> amounts to putting an animal to sleep.  I think Draco's actions were 
> going to end up getting a pretty sophisticated creature being killed.

Marianne:

Yes, it does sound like a lot of formality for the task at hand.  And 
if you are correct that the basis of all of this (trial, lawyers, 
executioner and the attendance by the Minister of Magic) is because of 
the level of sophistication or sentience of Buckbeak, this once again 
shows the skewed nature of the justice system in the WW.  All of this 
process and effort and time is devoted to an animal, while humans are 
summarily thrown into Azkaban with no trial whatsoever. 

Unless, of course, all of the attention given to Buckbeak's, and by 
extension, Hagrid's, situation is merely to heighten the tension for 
the reader.

OTOH, perhaps this is not so far removed from instances in our own 
world. When reading Phoenixgod's post I couldn't help but think of a 
recent event in South Carolina, where a law was passed making cock-
fighting a felony. At the same time efforts to raise the severity for 
domestic violence crimes to the felony level were defeated.

Marianne