Sirius Black: A Comparative Study Of The Victim Of Judicial Stripping Of Human Rights InA Harry Potter Novel And That Of A Judicial Verdict In 1994 West Bengal
Ms. Madhurai Gangopadhyay, Research Scholar, Department of English, Kazi Nazrul University, Asansol, West Bengal
ABSTRACT
In this paper, the researcher attempts an analysis of the judicial stripping of human rights in respect of the character of Sirius Black, who features from the third book onwards as quite an important character through J.K.Rowling’s Harry Potter series, but occupies the central part of the plot in the third book of series - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. In fact, it is Sirius who is the “Prisoner of Azkaban” mentioned in the title of the third book. Operating under the state of exception during the First Wizarding War, in J.K.Rowling’s Harry Potter series, the Ministry of Magic often bypasses the fundamental legal protections, including the right to fair trial. By analyzing the intersection of political expediency, institutional corruption and dehumanizing effects of carceral punishment, this paper highlights how Sirius Black embodies the systematic failures of authoritarian legal measures and by implications, helps us to reassess our recent history.
The Role of Barty Crouch Sr as the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in the novel will be expounded in the paper. Crouch, in order to boost his own career, uses draconian measures to project toughness on dealing with crime and is not at all concerned with the fact whether the one punished has actually committed the crime at all. Apparently, Sirius’s “crime” was that he had revealed the whereabouts of baby Harry Potter and his parents to the dictator Voldemort, which, as we would expound in our paper, he had not. Even then, he was, without a trial, indefinitely put behind bars for the leaking of vital information and the murder of a wizard Peter Pettigrew, who, the readers come to know thirteen years later, was still alive and had faked his death.
This paper would also focus on the horrible conditions of the wizard prison guarded by creatures called Dementors who constantly drain peace, hope, and happiness, forcing prisoners to relive their absolute worst memories. Therefore, this paper would also focus on the rights of prisoners and theorize in terms of discipline of law what should happen within legal provisions.
Moreover, after the death of Lily and James, Sirius who was the Godfather of Harry has the right to be his magical guardian. However, illegally the custody of his godson is taken away from him, to which no legal reason can be attributed, as both the godparent and the child are male. The researchers would try to prove that the “rarest of rarest punishment” was given to Sirius based merely on circumstantial evidence, reminding one of the landmark judgement passed by the Supreme Court of India delivered in Dhananjoy vs State of West Bengal, on 11th January 1994, much before the first book of Harry Potter had made its first appearance. A comparative study between the two cases, one fictional, one real, but both very similar in the laxity of investigation would also be attempted in this paper.
