system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Harry Potter] At the beginning of Order of the Phoenix, the Ministry of Magic expels Harry for using magic in front of a Muggle. But isn’t expulsion a decision that Dumbledore has to make? Why does the Ministry get the final say?

And by expulsion, I do mean expulsion from Hogwarts.
gpt
That was improper procedure! The Ministry does *not* have authority to expel students from Hogwarts unless criminal charges have been passed, which is why the correct order of operations was to first have Harry's hearing and *then* expel him based on the result. Remember that the head of the Improper Use of Magic Office (which handles underage magic) was Umbridge, the one who orchestrated the Dementor attack in the first place. As soon as she knew the attack failed, she probably tried to get him expelled and destroy his wand ASAP.

Unfortunately for her, Dumbledore was quick to act, and was able to remind the Ministry that's not how any of that worked; they had to wait until after the hearing before Hogwarts was required to do anything. Fudge was absolutely furious about this, which is why he started changing the law so the Ministry *did* have authority over Hogwarts, hence most of the plot of Book 5 with Umbridge's authoritarianism as a Ministry-appointed professor.