This might be a bit of a dumb question, but I'm curious about the government structure of Wizarding Britain. Specifically, what constitutes the legislative branch? We know that the Wizengamot is the judicial and the Ministry is the executive, but also that the branches aren't separated (as evidenced by Fudge presiding over Harry's trial). Given that Arthur apparently wrote a muggle protection bill, I'd wager that the Ministry is at least partially involved, but who votes on them?

 

Well, most fanon has a House of Lords style legislative branch where seats are inherited. The main basis I suspect for such a fanon theory is that with such a large muggleborn input the magical government would be very different if it was a representative democracy such as far less corruption. I suspect that to some degree this may be right (though I can't prove it), but not to the extreme depicted in many fanfics.

Most fics also have the Wizengamot providing both the judicial and legislative role, and given what Fudge did in the OotP, it would suggest all three branches may be combined. This would tie nicely into the corruption and the apparent face that followed the end of the first war surrounding Deatheater trials.

If I remember correctly several members on the forum have suggested the ministry is some sort of meritocracy (Taure I think?).

 

I thought that the wizengamot was like the supreme court, who presided over law changes and modifications.

 

I believe she has stated somewhere that the Wizengamot is both legislative and judicial.

In terms of general wizarding government, it also seems that the Minister, at least, is elected. However, judging by the range and degree of power he or she is able to exercise, it seems that once they're elected they can do more or less what they please with their term barring all but the most extreme fuckups.

 

This does make some sense. However, I don't think seats on the Wizengamot are inherited. Consider Umbridge, who was the daughter of a janitor, but who also served on the Wizengamot. Contrast with Lucius Malfoy, a pureblood member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, who isn't on the Wizengamot (we see a scene in book 5 where he says the minister told him of Harry's "escape", implying he wasn't at the trial). If the seats were inherited, you would expect the opposite to be true.

Edit: Additionally, while this does make some sense as headcanon, I don't remember seeing any mention in the books or supplementary works about the Wizengamot being legislative. We know the branches can be combined, but one would expect some kind of mention, right?

I double-checked the wiki for Wizengamot after reading this, but I could find no mention of law-making or anything of the like. Was this in an interview or Pottermore? If so, do you have the link/details?

Thanks for the help.

 

Umbridge was Senior Secretary to the Minister for Magic. Senior secretaries to ministers in the muggle world are generally experienced bureaucrats rather than politicians. Her position wouldn't be either inherited or elected.

It might just be that given they wouldn't want to call the whole Wizengamot for a trial that they have a number (say a dozen) of members who are paid a wage to act as jurors/judges in legal cases.

Maybe, this is very much conjecture.

 

Let's think about what we know:

1. We know the Minister is elected every 7 years.

2. We know that the Minister can enact wide ranging and powerful legilsation (decrees).

3. We know that the Wizengamot is the highest court.

4. We know that the Wizengamot can remove the Minister.

5. We know that the Wizengamot has some influence over legislation, but see 2.

It seems to me therefore that the Wizengamot is A) the highest judicial body and B) a legislative chamber with limited powers.

I say the Wizengamot qua legislature has limited powers because of the freedom the Minister seems to have, which we saw in OotP. For this reason I would suggest that the Wizengamot is a passive legislature, like the EU Parliament: its consent is required to pass laws and it can veto executive appointments, but it can't initiate legislation of its own accord, nor can it appoint the executive (as the House of Commons effectively can). Futhermore, there would be a strong convention that the Wizengamot passes the Minister's legislation unless they have lost confidence in the Minister.

As for the composition of the Wizengamot: it could be elected, inherited, or a mixture of the two. It may be that the Wizengamot has subcommittees and each one gets their position separately. For example, back when the House of Lords was still the highest court of the UK, it wasn't the full House of Lords that met to decide cases, it was a small sub-section of the House (the judicial sub-committee). This might be the same with the Wizengamot: the full Wizengamot may be larger than the judicial body we saw in OotP. If so, it's possible that the judicial part is appointed whereas the legislative part is elected.

 

Download: True, but it still seems odd that none of the old blood type famous families are present in Harry's descriptions, in any of the trials we see (except for the one in book 7). Umbridge may be a poor example, but Lucius still stands, I think.

Taure: This makes a lot of sense. However, isn't it possible that the ministerial decrees could be similar to American executive orders? Additionally, how do we know that the Wizengamot can remove the Minister? I know he can be sacked, from the first chapter of book 6, but I can't find anything about the Wizengamot being involved.

That aside, though, this conclusion seems to be sensible and canon-consistent. Since bills do seem to originate in the ministry, it does seem likely that the Minister would have ultimate bill-creating powers, but also that the Wizengamot would have to approve them. Do you think bills written by ministry employees (like Arthur's muggle-baiting bill or Umbridge's anti-werewolf legislation) have to be sent through the minister, then, or can any employee with a high enough position draft laws? Umbridge isn't the head of a department, but she may have been during book 3 when her legislation was apparently written, so perhaps that is a requirement.

The idea that the Wizengamot has separate judicial and legislative bodies seemed strange to me, so I looked back through OotP, and found this passage:

which appears to indicate that there are empty seats in the room. These could be seats for the legislative body or for the public to attend trials, but if it's the latter then it seems strange that nobody was present for the trial of Harry Potter - not even ministry employees who might have known about the time change. I looked through the rest of the books where trials were mentioned, but I couldn't find anything pointing either way. At the very least, I suppose it implies that it's possible for there to be other Wizengamot members we don't see.

 

They were trying to keep it from anyone who might tip off Dumbledore, so gave literally five minutes notice.

In GoF at Bagman/Crouch Jr's trials the room was packed, including Rita Skeeter.

 

It seems that Minister is like president, because he is elected ans is the Head of the country( Witharding Britain) Only the term is longer than normal - 7 years instead of usual 4.
Wizengamot looks like parliment ( House of Lords probably) somehow combined with Supreme Court.
Other Minister employees seem to be not elected, so probably beurocrats like everywhere + Avrorat as a combination of police and national security. Though there seems no army at all

 

In fanfic I have seen Albus as chief warlock being compared to the speaker. About the seats being inherited, it would be very strange as then the sacred 28 would most likely have seats and both Burke and Gaunt should have seats and we have seen that the gaunts don't have or just doesn't show up. Also the weasleys should have 2 seats as both weasley and prewett are on the list as well and Arthur could enter Harry's hearing

 

Assuming Molly is the only extant Prewett and/or first in the line of inheritance/political whatever

Edit: Also, beyond that the wizarding world in general is so small, so insular and so backwards in some respects (plus the inherent imbalances of magic) that I really don't expect its power structures to make sense in a modern context. Especially with how easily the political landscape changed from one minister to the next.

Also our POV is completely skewed, and Rowling doesn't do power very well.