Throughout the novels, it is regularly depicted as corrupt, elitist and completely incompetent, with its high-ranking officials blind to ominous events and unwilling to take action against threats to wizard society.

In Order of the Phoenix, Dolores Umbridge was placed at Hogwarts to observe the happenings within the school (acting as a ministry plant), and prevent the spread of news concerning the return of Lord Voldemort.

In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Fudge takes a long time to respond to the attacks on Hogwarts; and even then is sure that Rubeus Hagrid is causing the trouble rather than someone else.

The Ministry even mounts a campaign to damage Harry Potter's credibility, an effort fuelled in part by Fudge's fear that Albus Dumbledore wants to forcibly remove him from his position.

Nymphadora Tonks mentions that the program's courses of study include "Concealment and Disguise" and "Stealth and Tracking," and that the training is hard to pass with high marks.

Aurors in the Harry Potter series include Alastor Moody, Nymphadora Tonks, Kingsley Shacklebolt, John Dawlish, Frank and Alice Longbottom and Rufus Scrimgeour.

[6] During the First War against Voldemort, Aurors had authorisation to use the Unforgivable Curses on suspected Death Eaters: that is, they received licence to kill, coerce, and torture them.

The Improper Use of Magic Office is responsible for investigating offences under the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery and the International Confederation of Wizards' Statute of Secrecy.

A number of witches and wizards, including Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Lily Evans, and Severus Snape all known to have performed some underage magic while growing up in the Muggle world that went unpunished.

[7] His second violation, inflating Aunt Marge, is forgiven by Fudge because the Minister fears that Sirius Black is after Harry, and feels that his safety after running away from the Dursleys takes precedence.

[4] Dumbledore reminds Fudge that the Ministry doesn't have the power to expel students from Hogwarts, or to confiscate wands without benefit of a hearing.

During the hearing, the Minister for Magic sits in the middle of the front row and conducts most of the interrogation, while Percy Weasley (the Junior Undersecretary), acts as stenographer.

It is located on the sixth level of the Ministry of Magic and includes the following offices: the Floo Network Authority, responsible for setting up and maintaining the network, and distributing the greenish floo powder; the Broom Regulatory Control, that controls the traffic of broom travel; the Portkey Office, the regulation of Portkeys; and the Apparition Test Centre, that grants licences to witches and wizards so that they can apparate.

The department is located on the seventh level of the Ministry of Magic, and includes the British and Irish Quidditch League Headquarters, Official Gobstones Club, and the Ludicrous Patents Office – other sports and games-related aspects of the Harry Potter world.

However, worried that Crouch will fight off the effects of the Imperius Curse, Voldemort later has him imprisoned within his own house and has him communicate exclusively through supervised owl post.

Despite this precaution, Crouch manages to break free of the Imperius Curse, and makes his way to Hogwarts, hoping to warn Dumbledore of what is happening, running into Harry and Viktor Krum in the Forbidden Forest.

Crouch Jr. immediately goes to the forest, stuns Krum, kills his own father, transfigures the body into a bone, and buries it on the Hogwarts grounds.

He is worried about the fallout of announcing Voldemort's return, marking the end of the Wizarding world's years of peace, and the sudden outbreak of gloom and terror; hence he decides to merely ignore all of the evidence rather than accept the truth.

[13] In Order of the Phoenix, Fudge orchestrates a vicious smear campaign through the Daily Prophet to present Dumbledore as a senile old fool and Harry as an unstable, attention-seeking liar.

He is ousted by the wizarding community for his failure to announce the return of Voldemort immediately after the Triwizard Competition; for discrediting Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore; and for installing Dolores Umbridge as Headmistress of Hogwarts.

Rufus Scrimgeour serves as the Minister for Magic of the United Kingdom from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince until his death in the following book, succeeding Cornelius Fudge.

Bill Nighy played Scrimgeour in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, in which he is portrayed as Welsh and a more compassionate character.

He is the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the start of the book, when he is placed under the Imperius Curse by Corban Yaxley, who uses his position to infiltrate the senior ranks of the Ministry.

Thicknesse joins the ranks of the Death Eaters for the rest of the book and fights with them at the Battle of Hogwarts, where he duels against Percy Weasley, who resigns mid-duel.

She also lacks the ability to manufacture a truth potion, and falsely believes that Albus Dumbledore seeks a political coup against Minister for Magic Fudge.

This Commission conducted unethical trials against "muggle-born" witches and wizards before being disassembled by Interim Minister for Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt.

Rowling has confirmed via the fan site PotterMore that Umbridge is canonically placed in Azkaban, the Wizarding Prison, after the fall of Voldemort's corrupt Ministry.

In the climax of Deathly Hallows, Percy returns to his family and manages to make up with all of them, and eventually duels new Minister for Magic and Voldemort puppet Pius Thicknesse in the Battle of Hogwarts.

"[16] Julia Turner of Slate Magazine also interpreted Rowling's depiction of the ministration as criticism of the Bush and Blair administrations, suggesting the Ministry's security pamphlet recalls the Operation TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System).

All three elements work together to depict a Ministry of Magic run by self-interested bureaucrats bent on increasing and protecting their power, often to the detriment of the public at large.