[HPforGrownups] On Jurisprudence (was:Re: On the perfection of moral virtues)

[Bart Lidofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 169616

From: Goddlefrood <gav_fiji at yahoo.com>
Lizzy Ben 04:
>> However, in the WW, there is a system of "men, not laws." 
>> The MOM & Dumbledore *are* above the law, and the rules seem 
>> to depend mostly on who happens to be in power at the time.
>
Goddlefrood:
>In your opinion perhaps, but they do have laws. There is a 
>plethora of legislation in many forms, Codes, Decrees and 
>Statutes to name but three types. These suggest that, although 
>there is corruption, the basic precept is not dissimilar to 
>our own. That the legal system in the WW does not work is not 
>a matter I would contend.

Ah, I wanted to get in on this, but staying on topic is important. A law is only as effective as its ability to be enforced, either by agreement by the people, or the ability of those charged with enforcing it to do so. What we've seen of the WW seems to be a highly ordered surface, with a Wild West attitude underneath; everybody is equally armed, and, if pushed harder than they want to be pushed, will fight back. The level at which the law is simply ignored in the books is astounding, to say the least, from the arrest of Morfin (HBP) down to Arthur Weasley's enchanted Anglia (CoS, et al). 

On the old TV version of THE ODD COUPLE, in one episode, a truly marvelous concept was introduced. The pair were on a cruise, and Felix (the annoying one) wanted to take charge. The Captain gives him a title and a whistle. When Oscar (the sloppy one) asks the Captain what he was thinking, the Captain replies something on the order of, "Whenever I spot a potential troublemaker, I find that the best way to handle him is to give him a whistle. By the way, do you want a whistle?"

That is the feeling I get about the MoM; that it's a bunch of people who wanted to be in charge, so the community collectively gave them a figurative whistle, and then proceeded to largely ignore them, unless they started figuratively blowing too hard. 

One major problem is that Azkaban and wand breaking seem to be the only punishments available, and Azkaban can easily be a death sentence, and is certainly a torture center. Note that Hagrid was placed there on SUSPICION of having committed a crime. It does not create great respect for the law.

Goddlefrood:
>Happily in the US there has never been martial law, or any 
>military induced state of emergency. Other countries are not 
>so lucky. Life was cheap in the UK until quite recently (by 
>recently I mean from about the 15th Century onwards). 

Well, there WAS the time called, depending on who you are talking about, the Civil War, the War Between the States, and the War of the Slaveholder's Rebellion (sorry, carryover from my time in the adult game industry). And, there was the better remembered interrment of Japanese nationals and citizens of Japanese ancestry during WWII (I'll spare you the list of alternative names). 

>During the first rise of Voldemort imprisonment without trial 
>was possible and I am sure there were necessary promulgations 
>by the Minister, or more probably Barty Crouch Senior, to the 
>effect that witches and wizards could be imprisoned without 
>trial. Cough :: Guantanamo Bay :: cough.

Not a good analogy; Guantanamo Bay is a POW camp. What makes it unusual is that the people are being kept as prisoners of war; in the past, ununiformed combatants caught on the battlefield were traditionally either executed immediately, or tortured for any infomration they had and THEN executed, although the U.S. Supreme Court has defined that a military action in another country is NOT international(?!). On the other hand, the HP novels are somewhat closemouthed about the international magical community (for example, Iggy Krak is pretty clearly not British, but he seemed to have been under MoM authority anyway). In any case, I don't think they're a party to any of the Geneva Conventions. 

Lizzyben04:
>> Human rights are not a "relatively new" concept, especially at 
>> the time the books were written. The Geneva Convention, Hague 
>> conventions, international laws have all created & guaranteed 
>> basic human rights. 
>
>Goddlefrood:
>
>Did I say that, I only stated it in respect of legislation. 
>For instance the Human Rights Act 1998 (?) - UK. The US has 
>no named act or statute that says Human Rights in it as the 
>Constitution is adaptable and there is a huge body of common 
>law. Australia still has no Human Rights Act.

First of all, the Geneva Conventions have nothing to do with human rights; they are more about, "You don't do it to us, and we won't do it to you." As far as the United States go, the Declaration of Independence shows, and the U.S. Constitution clearly assumes, that the United States is a Social Contract rather than Divine Right state, where rights reside with the people; the government only has privileges (of course, that's only in theory; the fact that so few people know, or even want to know the difference is evidenced by the change of word in the title of the first novel from "Philosopher's" to "Sorcerer's"). 

>Look it up at many and varied sites, I'd not suggest Wikipedia 
>for that though.

I often do research in Wikipedia, first. If nothing else, it is an excellent place to find references to source documents. 

Bart