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September 27, 2005
The legal system in Harry Potter
Avada Kedavra. Crucio. Imperio.
The Three Unforgivable Curses in Harry Potter's wizarding world. These three spells are the worst crimes anyone could commit in the society of wizards. Anyone who uses any of these spells is liable for the wizarding world's worst punishment, a prison term in Azkaban. Avada Kedavra, Aramaic for 'let this thing be destroyed', instantly kills its target with a green burst of evil energy. Some Harry Potter fan forums tell me that abracadabra is indeed the Anglicized version of this spell. The Muggle equivalent of this spell would be the act of murder. Crucio, seemingly similar to crucify, is used to inflict pain on someone until they lose their sanity. The Muggle equivalent of this spell would be the act of torture. The Imperio curse lets the perpetrator assert complete control over someone and make them behave exactly as they please. There isn't a direct Muggle equivalent to this curse. However, because a person essentially loses their own identity when under the Imperius curse and can appear to be someone else, its closest Muggle equivalent would be the crime of identity theft. In the Muggle world, the most serious felonies are murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
So there you have it. The most serious crimes in our society are murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. In Harry Potter's wizarding world, the most serious crimes are murder, torture and identity theft.
It is worthwhile combining this observation about the wizarding world's legal system along with a few others to paint a picture of crime and punishment in J. K. Rowling's world of magick. From the scant contact wizards have with Muggles, it appears that the laws of the wizarding world are complete in themselves and are not an appendage to Muggle laws. If this is indeed the case, wizarding laws have serious deficiencies. Muggle society punishes its denizens for both crimes of commission and crimes of omission. In other words, an attempt to murder someone can sometimes, depending on circumstances, be as serious as say an inadvertent act of negligence during a surgery. In contrast, in the wizarding world, all the serious crimes are crimes of commission; there is no way these crimes cannot be committed intentionally. Because crimes of omission are effectively protected thus, a wizard could plausibly use this excuse to use serious spells that would otherwise be serious infarctions. Malicious wizards with a law enforcement function, such as disgruntled Aurors, could use serious spells instead of mild, protective hexes and claim to have overreacted in self-defense when they were startled by an enemy. There doesn't seem to be a safety net of procedural guidelines that would prevent Aurors from manufacturing 'encounters' with purported Death Eaters or other unwelcome elements of wizarding society. Likewise, Madam Pomfrey, the school nurse, can simply 'forget' to give Harry an essential antidote and let his condition worsen to a serious point. Not prosecuting crimes of omission as seriously as crimes of commission is a serious failing of the legal system of the wizarding world.
From what I have seen of the legal code of the wizarding world, it is unclear whether there are legal deterrents against crimes of assault and exploitation against women, children and (possibly) other protected groups. In Muggle society, these groups typically receive major protections from the state. For example, it is much harder for a man to accuse a woman of raping him than vice versa. Usually, there are historical reasons for this subtle 'criminal affirmative action.' On the other hand, the legal system in the wizarding world is a lot less forgiving towards anyone who isn't a competent wizard. What protections are offered against the criminal assault or exploitation of someone like Argus Filch (who lives in the wizarding world but cannot do magic because he is a squib) ? The legal system of the wizarding world ostensibly doesn't have laws against aggravated assault, trafficking or rape of anyone, much less protected groups. If someone tries to pull any of these acts off with you and you are not a competent wizard, you're basically guaranteed the trauma of being on the receiving end of these crimes. Afterwards, unless you find a competent wizard friend to help you recover from an assault, you're on your own. Amid the vast (and crumbling) bureaucracy of the Ministry of Magic, there don't seem to be institutions to protect and counsel disadvantaged groups such as squibs to educate them better about guarding against and recovering from indiscretions more powerful wizards may commit against them. Perhaps this hands-off approach to protecting disadvantaged groups is intentionally meant to put the onus on talented wizards to protect themselves and as many others as possible, who cannot protect themselves. I can't help but fear that it would create wizard classes of varying talents, with the least talented ones at the protection of the more talented ones. It may well be just a tool to inculcate a sense of empathy and an urge to help those less privileged in the target audience of the Harry Potter books, which brings me to my next point.
The Harry Potter series has received a lot of flak from religious groups for its amoral portrayal and implicit espousal of the wizarding lifestyle. These groups contend that children's utter fascination with the series will make God seem superfluous in their eyes and therefore muddy their moral compass. If anything, I think the Harry Potter books take decidedly moral stands and unequivocally reward good and condemn evil. Implicit moral judgements are elicited for every character in the series by viewing them not only through the lens of their actions but also through that of their antecedents. Heavy emphasis is given to the wizarding family, if any, in which a wizard was raised. The legal system in the wizarding world, rather than being a system to mete out justice to both parties, seems to take on a moral character and judge things as implicitly good or bad. The legal system in the Muggle world provides scores of procedural protections and recourses to suspected criminals even when it is clear that they have probably committed a crime. It tries, as far as possible, to set only legal precedents (and not moral ones) by its verdicts. This approach comes across as pragmatic in the face of ever-changing morals. The legal system of the wizarding world, in contrast, is morally unambiguous and metes out punishments to criminals after considering their motivation for a crime, their antecedents and how important it is that they be taught a lesson. While it is considerably more elitist than the Muggle legal system in offering protections, it is also heavy-handed and morally unambiguous in offering punishments.
This paternalistic function of a legal system seems outdated at best in modern Muggle times. Nonetheless, it serves to highlight the conflict between good and evil ways every wizard faces daily in his or her heart. All wizards, and indeed all Muggles, have the capacity for good and evil within them but which path they choose is ultimately up to them.
Posted by Vishy at September 27, 2005 01:13 AM