Task 2. Render the article “The Concept of the British Constitution” in Russian

Реферат представляет собой обобщенное, сжатое изложение содержания первоисточника. Приступая к реферированию, необходимо:

· устно или письменно перевести текст первоисточника;

· выделить ключевые отрывки, несущие в себе основной смысл;

· отобрать главные факты, данные и положения, которые должны быть отражены в реферате, и выстроить их в логической последовательности;

· руководствуясь внутренней логикой текста и пользуясь четкими формулировками, обобщить содержание текста первоисточника; при этом следует отбросить все рассуждения, полемику, соображения гипотетического характера, элементы авторской субъективной трактовки, образность и эмоциональность.

Чтобы избежать частностей, язык реферата должен быть предельно четким, точным и лаконичным. Реферирование не сводится к сокращенному переводу первоисточника, референт излагает содержание собственными словами.

В зависимости от характера реферируемого материала и от поставленной задачи реферат может быть рефератом-конспектом или рефератом-резюме.

Если референт имеет дело с материалом, изобилующим данными, фактами, цифрами, именами собственными, которыми он не может пожертвовать при обобщении, реферат будет иметь конспективный характер, и степень обобщения будет меньше, нежели реферата-резюме, который призван отразить главное, наиболее важное в реферируемом материале и оставить в стороне второстепенное.

Task 3. Read the paragraph and find the synonyms for the following words or expressions used by the author

1. generally speaking 2. Minister in charge of law and order, the police and prisons 3.encroach upon a right 4. understand a principle 5. not restrained 6. a violation of the law 7. what belongs to someone 8. bring a civil action against someone 9. find out 10. protected (like a religious relic)

 

The Rule of Law

Broadly, therefore, today the Rule of Law is the principle that the process of government is bound up with the law and that the law is supreme. A Government in power must act according to law, i.e. within the law. For example, a Home Secretary cannot forcibly enter my house unless he has lawful power to do so: neither may he arrest me unless he has lawful power so to act. The law gives me remedies if my rights are infringed. The Rule of Law may, therefore, be said to prevail when the exercise of all forms of public authority (central government authorities, local authorities, police and other bodies) is subject to review by the ordinary courts of law to which all citizens must have equal access.

The Rule of Law may perhaps best be grasped by contrasting it with its opposite, i.e. the arbitrary (uncertain, unpredictable) use of authority against any person or property, unchecked by any other power or body. (...) Professor A. V. Dicey, in his work The Law of the Constitution (1885), gave three meanings of the Rule of Law thus:

(i) Absence of Arbitrary Power or Supremacy of the Law

It means in the first place, the absolute supremacy or predominance of regular law as opposed to the influen­ce of arbitrary power, and excludes the existence of arbitrariness of prerogative, or even wide discretionary authority on the part of the Government... a man may be punished for a breach of the law, but he can be puni­shed for nothing else.

(ii) Equality before the Law

The Rule of Law means again equality before the law or the equal subjection of all classes to the ordinary law of the land administered by the ordinary law courts.

(iii) The Constitution is the Result of the Ordinary Law of the Land (...)

Dicey states: 'with us the constitution is the consequence of the rights of the individual as defined in the Courts of Law.' The British Constitution is unwritten: it is the product of the operations of the ordinary law of the land. The legal rights and duties of a British subject are generally found in the common law (there are, of course, certain rules contained in particular statutes). The broad rule of the common law is that no one may interfere with or invade my person or property unless he has lawful power so to do. Otherwise he commits a wrong (contrary to common law) for which I may sue. There is no guaranteed constitutional rule in writing to this effect: it is merely the rule of the common law which has been hammered out over the centuries by the judges. Any citizen may, therefore, ascertain his rights from the legal cases decided in the past and from sta­tutes. There are, therefore, no fundamental and guaranteed rights enshrined in some sacred constitutional code or statute.

The British Constitution made simple, C. F. Padfield& T. Byrne