Exercise 2. Match English and Russian equivalents.

1) низшие суды a) to be elevated to the bench

2) юридическая профессия b) judiciary system

3) высшие суды с) at random

4) увольнять d) social classes

5) система присяжных е) legal profession

6) юридическая система f) trial

7) большое количество g) lower courts

8) наугад h) higher courts

9) судебное разбирательство i) legal adviser

10)юрисконсульт j) to dismiss

11)возвыситься до положения k) heavy concentration судьи

12)социальные классы I) the jury system

 

PART 12

Text 1

Tort law

Tort — in common law, any instance of harmful behaviour, from physical attack on one's person to interference with one's goods or use and enjoyment of one's land, economic interests, and honour, reputation and privacy. The concept encompasses only those civil wrongs independent of contracts. Throughout its long history tort has pursued different aims: punishment, appeasement, deterrence, compen­sation, and efficient loss spreading of the cost of acci­dents. None offers a complete justification; all are im­portant, though at different stages one may have been more prominent than the rest.

Tort law is considered to have following purposes: to compensate people for wrongs suffered; to place the cost of that compensation upon those who, in justice, ought to bear it (an issue of fairness
rtiich is absent in the criminal law); to prevent future losses and harms (deterrence); to vindicate the one wronged; to deter victims from having to make an individual letaliation for wrongs done.

 

Exc.1 Find the synonyms to the following words and word combinations:

 

- to break the law; - on the edge of; - an aggressive person; - satisfaction; - a general term; - in fact

- a disease - different reasons - to be tried - to happen immediately - to be called - shirking school

Exc.2 Give Russian equivalents to the words given in bold type.

KINDS OF TORTS

There are two chief categories of torts: intentional torts and torts resulting from negligence. The core element in an intentional tort is an intent, or purpose, to cause harm to another. The law provides that a person has intent if he or she desires to cause the consequences of his or her act, or believes that the consequences are substantially certain result from the act. Intentional torts fall into two categories: torts against a person and torts against property.

Negligence refers to the failure of a person to exercise sufficient care in his or her conduct. When a person's conduct falls below the reasonable expectation of society and causes foreseeable harm to another, the person has acted negligently. Society's expect known in torts based on negligence as the legal duty of care — is that an individual reasonably prudent and careful person would act in similar circumstances. A person can act negligently by doing something that a reasonable person would not do or by failing something that a reasonable person would do. The law does not require that the person has an intent to cause harm.

Text 2

Capital punishment

The ultimate penalty is death (capital punishment). It is carried out by hanging (Kenya, for example); electrocution, gassing or lethal injection eheading or stoning (Saudi Arabia); or shooting (China). Although most countries still have a death penalty, 62 (including almost every European nation) have abolished it; 18 retain it only for exceptional crimes such as wartime offences; and 27 no longer carry out executions even when a death sentence has been passed. In other words, almost half the countries of the world have ceased to use the death penalty. The UN has declared itself in favour of abolition, Amnesty International actively campaigns for abolition, and the issue is now the focus of great debate.

Supporters of capital punishment believe that death is a just punishment for certain serious crimes. Many also believe that it deters others from committing such crimes. Opponents argue that execution is cruel and uncivilized. Capital punishment involves not only the pain of dying (James Autry took ten minutes to die of lethal injection in Texas, 1984) but also the mental anguish of waiting, sometimes for years, to know if and when the sentence will be carried out. Opponents also argue that there is no evidence that it deters people from committing murder any more than imprisonment does. A further argument is that, should a mistake be made, it is too late to rectify it once the execution has taken place. In 1987, two academics published a study showing that 28 innocent people had been executed in the United States. Research has shown that capital punishment is used inconsistently. During a crime wave in China in the 1980s, cities were given a quota of executions to meet; in a city where there weren't very many murders, people convicted of lesser crimes were more likely to be executed. In addition, while in some countries young people are not sent to prison but to special juvenile detention centres, in Nigeria, Iran, Iraq, Bangladesh, Barbados and the United States children under 18 have been legally put to death.

As the debate about capital punishment continues, the phenomenon of death row (people sentenced but still alive) increases. The debate also involves the question of what punishment is for. Is the main aim to deter? This was certainly the case in the 18th century England when the penalty for theft was supposed to frighten people from stealing and compensate for inabilities to detect and catch thieves. Is it revenge or retribution? Is it to keep criminals out of society? Or is it to reform and rehabilitate them?

 

Exc.1 Read and memorize the active vocabulary:

 

to create to modify

to abolish

to apply

to observe

to enact

to execute

to break

to violate

to enforce

to practice

to teach

to outlaw

to keep with

to stick

to to amend

to refer

to reject to file

to consider

to satisfy

to justify

to investigate to submit to handle to consider to institute

to dismiss to try to hear to lose to examine to win

to initiate to introduce -to debate to approve to pass to amend

to confer

to sign

to reject

to shelve

to postpone

An innocent person

an applicant

a claimant a private person

an assaulted — (an eye)witness / a plaintiff-in-cross /

a victim / an acquitted the injured /

PART 13

Text 1

Property law

Property law includes principles, policies, and rules by which disputes over property are to be resolved and by which property transactions may be structured so that disputies may be avoided. What distinguishes property from other kinds of law is that the principles, policies, and rules of property law deal with the relationships between and among members of a society with respect to «things».

Property is frequently defined as the rights of a personwith respect to a thing. The things may be tangible, such as land or a factoryor a diamond ring, or they may be intangible, such as stocks and bonds or a bank account. Property law, then, deals with the allocation, use, and transfer of welth and the objects of wealth. As such, it reflects the economy of the society in which it is found. Since it deals with the control and transfer of wealth between spouses and across generations, property law reflects the family structure of the society in which it is found. Since it deals with such fundamental issues as the economy and the structure of the family.

Exc.1 Give Russian equivalents to the words given in bold type.

 

LAND LAW

Land law is a fascinating and challenging subject for land is vital for human life. In any society the use of land is of the utmost importance. Land law is about how people share land and it is made up of rules in statutes and cases; case law rules are divided into legal and equitable rules. Most land law statutes in Britain are dated 1925. The aim of the 1925 legislation was to make buying and selling land simpler to revive the depressed market in land.

"Land" means the physical land and fixtures and includes any interest in land. It can be used by a number of people in different ways: one can invest money in a plot, while two or more live there. Land can be shared consecutively: people can enjoy the land one after another.

Each society develops its own cultural attitudes to land. These attitudes are coloured by the kind of land (for example, desert or jungle) because this determines the uses of it. In early English land law, the fundamental concept was "seisin". Then the concepts of ownership and possession took over. British land law has been developing alongside the growth of capitalism and city-living. More recently there has been an enormous increase in the ownership of land by ordinary people. In the 1960s and 70s there were booming prices in most arias of the country and a greater interest in the security of "non-owners". The falling market of the early 1990s produced the situation favourable for the building societies and banks.

INTERESTS IN LAND

The land law can seem obscure and is often distanced from real life by historical introductions. Lawyers' history tends to vary a lot and is often coloured by unspoken political opinions. Lawyers are concerned with various rights to land, called "interests in land". They might talk about someone "owning land", but really they mean someone owning an interest in the land. These interests are not the land itself, the earth and the buildings, but abstract concepts, like the fee simple and the lease. The term "interests in land" is significant to land lawyers because it shows that the rights and duties of the people concerned are not merely personal or contractual. These rights and duties are "glued" to the land itself and automatically pass to anyone who buys or inherits the land; they can therefore be transferred to other people and bind parties.

In lawyers' vocabulary, interests in land are property. The land lawyerviews every piece of land as potentially fragmented into a number of interests. The major interests are called the estates. The word "estate" means "an interest in land of some particular duration". There are now two estates - the freehold and the leasehold (and the third, called commonhold may be introduced).

There are many legal interests in land and many equitable interests.

The court of law recognized various estates and interests in land and would enforce the rights of a legal owner; the courts of equity might override this in favour of a person with a stronger moral right to the land. There are two main reasons why it is important to label interests as "legal" and "equitable". The first is that equitable interests depend on equitable remedies and these depend on the court's direction: the court of equity only grants a remedy if the claimant has behaved fairly. Legal remedies on the other hand (damages, for example), are available "as of right"; a plaintiff is entitled to damages if her strict legal rights have been infringed, whether or not this is fair.

 

 

Text 2

TRADEMARK LAW

The U.S. International Trade Commission has defined a "trademark" as "any word, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof,| adopted and used by a manufacturer or merchant to identify his goods and distinguish them from those manufactured or sold by others". In the United States, trademarks can be registered on both the federal and state levels, but more-protection is available by registering the mark on the federal level. The symbol used to show that a product is registered as a trademark consists of a "R" with a circle around it: ®. If a trademark is violated, the owner of the right may seek damages for the trademark infringement or exclusion orders from the U.S.International Trade Commission.

Example: Mr. Merchant markets a drink called "Tangy Red ®". Mr. Merchant has a trademark on the name Tangy Red, and for the symbol TR S which he uses on the side of the drink. Not only has Mr. Merchant protected his drink name and logo, but the trademarks also protect the public from buying one product they believe to be one thing, when in fact it is something else.

When a trademark has not been registered, the manufacturer or merchant may use the symbol "TM" instead of ®.

An organization's name, products, slogans, and manufacturing processes are usually trademarked. That means that these things are officially registered and their use is restricted to the owner or manufacturer. A trademark is legally protected and should be capitalized whenever it is used.

A trademark is a valuable asset jealously guarded by its owners. Sony, Coca-Cola, IBM, Porsche, McDonald's, and Reebok are all registered trademarks. So is the Mercedes-Benz star symbol.

Organizations and corporations protect their trademarks in various ways. One method is to establish standard policies on how the organization should use and display its trademarked names. You must know the registered trademarks of your company and how they may be used.

Companies also guard their trademarks by continually using them, sending advisories to media outlets about proper use of these trademarks, placing advertisements in journalism publications reminding readers of trademarked names, and monitoring publications to ensure that other organizations are not infringing on a trademark. If they are, legal action is threatened or taken.

In sum, make yourself familiar with what might be considered trademark infringement. Even if you are innocent, the money and time spent fighting a lawsuit are rarely worthwhile.

Here are some guidelines the courts use to determine if a trademark has been infringed:

• Has the defendant used a name as a way of capitalizing on the reputation
of another organization's trademark?

• Is there an intent to create confusion in the public mind? Is there an
intent to imply a connection between the defendant's product and the item
identified by the trademark?

• How similar are the two organizations? Are they providing the same
kinds of services or products?

• Has the original organization actively protected the trademark by
publicizing it and using it?

• Is the trademark unique? A trademark that merely describes a common
product might be in trouble. Microsoft, for example, lost a bid to trademark
the word "windows" for its exclusive use.

 

Exc.1 Read and memorize active vocabulary:

to settle a matter in court (out of court) to take a matter to court; bring smb before the court, to face the court, the court rules that...

a court-room, a court hearing

law n: a system of law, a court of law, to study (read) law, to practise law, civil (criminal) law, under English (French) law, questions of law, to maintain law and order the law of the land, under the law, to break/offend against the law. Observe (Keep within the law), to enforce the law, lawful, lawyer, law-abiding citizens

at the trial; the trial of smb; to try smb; to try a case; to be on trial/out of trial; to stand trial; to appear at the trial as a witness

to be expert in smth, on a subject

the accused; to accuse smb of smth; to bring an accusation; to sue smb for smth (to scold; reprimand, to blame)

innocent of, innocence

to charge with smth; to bring a charge of (murder) against smb; on a charge of; revision:to be in charge of; to charge smb with smth; to entrust

the accused - the prisoner - the man in the dock - the defendant to acquit smb of smth; acquittal

guilty of; to plead (not) guilty to smth; to find (not) guilty; to prove the guilt be­yond reasonable doubt, to plead for mercy

to steal smth from smb; to rob smb of smth: to rob a bank; a robbery with violence; a burglary; robber - burglar; to break into a house; a house breaker; a thief; theft; pick­pocket

a case; a lawsuit, to hear (try a case)

 

PART 14

Labour law

In its most comprehensive sense the term «labour law»includes social security and disability insurance as well. Labour law is the varied body of law applied to such matters as employment, remuneration, conditions of work, trade unions, and industrial relations. Unlike the laws of contract, tort, or property, the elements of labour law are somewhat less homogeneous than the rules governing a particular legal relationship. In addition to the individual contractual relationships growing out of the traditional employment situation, labour law deals with the statutory requirements and collective relationships that are increasingly important in mass-production societies, the legal relationships between organized economic interests and the state, and the various rights and obligations related to some types of social services.

In the early phases of development the scope of labour lawis often limited to the most developed and important industries.Labour law has won recognition as a distinctive branch of the law within the academic legal community, but the extent to which it is recognized as a separate branch of legal practice varies widely depending partly on the extent to which there is a labour code or other distinctive body of labour legislation in the country concerned, partly on the extent to which there are separate labour courts or tribunals, and partly on the extent to which an influential group within the legal profession practice specifically as labour lawyers.