A Clarification on Trial / Hearing and Other Legal Issues

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 166210

Carol earlier:
> 
> > > The job of interrogator (judge?) was supposed to be Madam 
> Bones's alone, as Head of the Department of Magical Law 
> Enforcement, just as it's Barty Crouch Sr.'s alone (with no 
> interference from the then-current Minister for Magic) in the 
> GoF Pensieve scenes. The hearing was originally supposed to 
> take place in Madam Bones's office.
> 
> Goddlefrood:
> 
> We do not actually know this for a fact. 

Carol:
If you mean that we don't know that the hearing was supposed to take
place in Madam Bones's office, yes, we do. Mr. Weasley tells Harry,
"The hearing's on my floor, in Amelia Bones's office. She's Head of
the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and she's the one who'll be
questioning you" (123). Tonks follows with the statement that Madam
Bones is fair and will hear Harry out.

It's Fudge, perhaps under the influence of Dolores Umbridge, who
changes the time and venue of the hearing, informing both Harry and
Dumbledore at the last minute.


That is that the Head 
> of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement presides over the 
Wizengamot, which is what we are dealing with. To reinforce this I put
before you the fact that Dumbledore was the Chief Warlock of the
Wizengamot, and my previous submission on Cornelius Fudge as being
Chairman for Harry's proceedings in OotP. 

Carol responds:
I'm not talking about ordinary meetings of the Wizengamot. I'm talking
about trials or hearings before the Wizengamot, over which the Head of
the Department of Magical Law Enforcement presides. As I noted, it's
Madam Bones who asks for a vote (the chairman's job according to
Robert's Rules of Order). 

Look at the GoF hearing/trial scenes. No one except Barty Crouch Sr.
is presiding or acting as "interrogator" there.

First, Sirius Black tells HRH that "Barty Crouch used to be Head of
the Department of Magical Law Enforcement" (Amelia Bones's exact job
title) and that he "gave the order to send me {Sirius black] to
Azkaban" (GoF Am. ed. 526). Later he mentions that Barty sentenced his
own son to Azkaban (528).

Setting aside Crouch's abuse of power, including authorizing Aurors to
use Unforgiveables, we see in GoF how the system works, with Crouch
acting as what I would call a judge--call it a chairman, if you
prefer, but the problem there is that he wasn't the Chief Warlock of
the Wizengamot. Mr. Crouch stands in the middle of the bench and
addresses the various defendants: "Igor Karkaroff, you have been
brought from Azkaban to present evidence . . ." (587). "Ludo Bagman,
you have been brought here before the Council of Magical Law to answer
charges. . . ." (592).  And again, with the unnamed four accused of
Crucioing the Longbottoms into insanity,"You have been brought before
the Council of Magical Law so that we may pass judgment on you. . . ."
(594). In passing, I wonder if the Council of Magical Law is a
committee within the Wizengamot that determines the verdict and passes
the sentence. Just a suggestion-- a variant on your Tribunal idea.

The hearings are for different purposes, but in each of them, Crouch
is very much in charge. In what appears to be a closed hearing (no
reporters), he asks Karkaroff for names and comments on the names
presented. Although DD and Moody talk to each other, no one else
participates in the hearing except for DD standing up to defend Snape.
Crouch says, "Very well, Karkaroff. I shall review your case" (590).

In Ludo Bagman's case, the hearing is public, almost a spectator
event, with Rita Skeeter present to report it to her readers. Crouch
tells Bagman that the council has heard the evidence against him and
is about to reach a verdict. Bagman gets in a word in his defense (he
knows he's been a bit of an idiot) before Crouch says that he was
caught passing information to Voldemort's supporters and suggests a
prison sentence. The crowd protests, and Bagman speaks up again in his
own defense. Crouch says, "It will be put to a vote. *The jury* will
please raise their hands. Those in favor of imprisonment--" (593). The
jury, which does not include Crouch, who seems to be acting as
presiding judge, is presumably the previously mentioned Council of
Magical Law. It certainly is not the whole audience, which includes at
least one reporter and apparently a large number of spectators. Harry
identifies the jury as  a group on the right-hand side of the dungeon,
not one of whom votes to imprison Bagman. (Dumbledore, sitting near to
Crouch, doesn't vote, either.)

In the case of the Lestranges and Barty Jr., Crouch tells them that
"we" (the Council) have heard the evidence against them and goes into
some detail about their crime, ignoring the shrieking pleas of his
son, then asks "the jury" (presumably the same Council of Magical Law)
to raise their hands if they believe as he does that the crime
deserves a life sentence in Azkaban" (595). Again, not being a member
of the jury, he does not vote, but the "witches and wizards along the
right-hand side of the dungeon"--the jury--raise their hands in unison
(595). As with the Bagman case, Crouch specifies the sentence and the
jury votes for or against it.

That, I imagine, is the way that Harry's trial was supposed to work,
even with the change of venue and the Wizengamot as jury, except that
normally Madam Bones alone would act as "interrogator" and as judge
(not proposing a sentence because no verdict had been reached, but
asking for a vote to clear all charges or declare the "witness"
guilty). For Fudge (and Umbridge) to intervene in a court proceeding,
even "a full criminal trial" involving the Wizengamot, is evidently an
alteration of the normal protocol.

A breach of the Restriction for Underage magic, even with the Statute
of Secrecy brought in because it involved a Muggle, should simply have
involved a disciplinary hearing in Madam Bones's office. And even with
the change to the same dungeon, chained chair and all, where the
Pensieve scenes took place, Madam Bones, as Head of the Office of
Criminal Law Enforcement, should have been in charge. It's as if the
U.S. President had suddenly stepped in to interfere with a trial
presided over by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (or the Muggle
Prime Minister had done the same in the House of Lords).
 
Goddlefrood: 
> A small aside: elsewhere in cyberspace it has been pointed out that
the Wizengamot is similar to the House of Lords (the highest appeal
body in the United Kingdom (distinct from the Privy Council before any
one asks. On that basis the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot would be
analogous to the Lord Chancellor, a link for those interested:

Carol:
But the problem is, there appears to be no Chief Warlock of the
Wizengamot now that Dumbledore has been demoted, nor did the Chief
Warlock play any role in the Pensieve hearings (unless the CW was
Dumbledore, who spoke up for Snape but did not conduct the
proceedings). The Minister for Magic, if he was present at any of the
hearings, played no role at all. Fudge is supposed to head the
*executive* branch of government, not the legislative or judicial
branches, however confused those two appear to be. (And however flawed
our judicial system in the U.S., we do at least have separation of
powers.)

Goddlefrood:
> A Judge does preside, but he is the arbiter of law, the jury is the
arbiter of fact. When the jury decides on the facts, based on the law
that the Judge would tell them in his summing up of the case, after
all witnesses have been heard and Counsels or Attorneys made their
submissions, it decides the outcome of the trial. <snip>
> 
> Oh, and Judges can, and do, question witnesses if there is any point
that is not clear to them. <snip>

Carol:
In that case, I stand by my contention that Crouch is the judge and
the Council of Law the jury, and that something similar ought to have
occurred with Madam Bones as judge and no "interrogators" from the
executive branch interfering with the system of justice, such as it is
in the WW. And i am quite sure that, like Crouch in the GoF scenes,
she did not vote. The judge does not vote with the jury, at least not
in our flawed American system. He asks the jury for their verdict. You
may think that my reasoning is flawed, but my canon is not.

Fudge is the Minister for Magic, not the Head of the Department of
Magical Law Enforcement or the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, and
IMO, he had no business acting as "chairman" or judge or
"interrogator" in that hearing, not by my standards or even by the
usual procedure of the WW itself.

Carol, thanking Goddlefrood for clearing up her confusion over the
reference to Harry as a witness at his own hearing and hoping that
someone else will pick up on the Inquisition inquiries in my previous
post to this thread