Перепишите следующие предложения, обращая внимание на функции инфинитива. Переведите предложения на русский язык.

1. To interrogate the accused the investigator looked through all information about the crime. 2. To make a long story short means to keep to the point and to be brief. 3. There is no need for him to appear in the court-room. 4. There is no reason for him to change anything in his life. 5. She tried to make long story short.

Перепишите следующие предложения, принимая во внимание правила согласования времен и бессоюзное подчинение. Переведите предложения на русский язык. При переводе обратите внимание на тот факт, что в русском языке правила согласования времен отсутствуют.

1. The judge told us what crime the accused would be guilty of, if the evidence supplied by the prosecution was true. 2. When the judge had finished his summing up, he asked the jury to consider their verdict. 3. I inquired what one had to do if he needed a barrister in the High Court. 4. My friend wondered what he was supposed to do, if he got into trouble with the law in England.

 

 

Переведите следующий текст письменно, используя словарь.

Criminal Law in England

In English law there is a rather long common law definition of murder. The unlawful killing of a human being under the Queen's Peace, with malice aforethought, so that the victim dies within a year and a day.

Malice aforethought refers to the mens rea of the crime and is a way of saying that the murderer intended to commit a crime. Of course, the court can never know exactly what was in the head of the killer at the time of the killing, so it has the difficult task of deciding what his intentions must have been. The judgements in many recent cases show that English law is constantly developing its definition of intent.

Although most criminal laws in the world refer to acts of violence or theft, there are laws regulating almost every kind of human behavior: for example, what we do with our land; what we say and write; how we run our businesses; even what we wear. Sometimes governments "create new crimes" by identifying a form of behavior and passing a new law to deal with it. In most industrialized countries existing theft laws were not adequate to deal with computer crimes where complex kinds of information are stolen, altered or used to deceive others and thus, new laws have been passed. Technical change is one reason why the criminal law is one of the fastest growing areas of the law. Another reason is that the number of crimes committed in some countries seem to be increasing rapidly - although sometimes it is not clear whether people are breaking the law more, being caught more, or reporting other people's crimes more. One more reason is that different societies, or perhaps it is different governments, continually review their ideas of what should and shouldn’t be a considered crime.

 

 

Второй год обучения

КОНТРОЛЬНОЕ ЗАДАНИЕ № 3

 

JUDICIAL INSTITUTIONS

 

Для того, чтобы правильно выполнить Задание №4, необходимо усвоить следующие разделы грамматики английского языка по любым учебникам:

1. Основные сведения о сослагательном наклонении (Subjunctive Mood). Условные предложения.

2. Сложные формы инфинитива (Infinitive ) и причастия (Participle).

3. Обороты, равнозначные придаточным предложениям:

a) Объектный инфинитивный оборот (Complex Object)

b) Субъектный инфинитивный оборот (Complex Subject)

c) Самостоятельный (независимый) причастный оборот (Absolute Participial Construction).

4. Многозначность that (those), once, only, since.

После изучения всего указанного выше материала можно приступить к выполнению задания.

READING MATERIAL

 

Text 3 (A) The English Court System

In all legal systems there are institutions for creating, modifying, abolishing and applying the law. Usually these take the form of a hierarchy of courts. The role of each court and its capacity to make decisions is strictly defined in relation to other courts. There are two main reasons for having a variety of courts. One is that a particular court can specialize in particular kinds of legal actions – for example, family courts and juvenile courts. The other is so that a person who feels his case was not fairly treated in a lower court can appeal to a higher court for reassessment. The decisions of a higher court are binding upon lower courts. At the top of the hierarchy is a supreme lawmaking body, but the process of taking an action from a lower court to the highest court may be very time-consuming and costly.

In general, the division between civil and criminal law is reflected in this chart. The Crown Courts, for example, deal exclusively with criminal matters, the Country Courts, with civil (for example, divorce or bankruptcy cases). However, the High Court considers appeals from lower criminal courts as well as civil matters, and the Magistrates Courts, while mostly concerned with criminal cases, also deal with some civil matters. The highest court, the House of Lords, deals with all matters (including appeals from Scottish and Northern Irish courts).

A criminal case usually begins in a Magistrates Court. Having arrested someone suspected of committing a crime, the police must decide if they have enough evidence to make a formal accusation, or charge. If they charge the suspect, they may release him on the condition that he appears on a certain date at a certain Magistrates Court. This is known as unconditional bail. However, the police may instead take the suspect to a magistrate so that he remains in custody until he next appears before a court. The magistrate may decided that it is not necessary to hold the suspect in custody and may agree to unconditional bail, or the magistrate may grant conditional bail – that is, release the suspect provided that he puts up some money as security or agrees to surrender his passport or some similar condition.

The Magistrates Court is the most common type of law court in England and Wales. There are 700 Magistrates Courts and about 30,000 magistrates. As the lowest criminal court, a Magistrates Court is empowered to hear certain cases only. Some serious crimes, like murder, cannot be heard by the magistrates and must go to the Crown Courts, which has 90 branches in different towns and cities.

In a Crown Court trial there are twelve jurors. These are ordinary members of the public between the ages of 18 and 70 who are selected at random. They are not paid but are given expenses while they are on jury service, which is usually for about two weeks. Service is compulsory, and it cannot normally be avoided without a good reason, such as illness. It is not necessary for a juror to know anything about the law – indeed certain people connected with the world of law, such as solicitors, are not allowed to serve as juror. This is because the job of the jury is to listen to the case and to decide questions of fact. It is the judge’s responsibility to guide them on questions of law.

Apart from the limited civil functions of Magistrates Courts (for example, prevention of family violence), the lowest court in a civil action is a Country Court, which is in every town in England and Wales. The judges are always professionals. They may hear matters such as contract and tort disputes or those regarding the property of a dead person. Cases involving larger amounts of money are heart by one of the divisions of the High Court.

Appeals are heard by higher courts. For example, appeals from Magistrates Courts are heard in the Crown Court, unless they are appeals on points of law. Appeals from the Crown Court go first to the High Court and, in special cases, to the Court of Appeal. The highest court of appeal in England and Wales is the House of Lords. (Scotland has its own High Court in Edinburgh, which hears all appeals from Scottish courts.) Members of the House of Lords are not elected but consist of hereditary peers, peers appointed for life by the government, bishops of the Church of England, and the law lord – peers appointed for life after long service lawyers. Only the government can overturn a decision of the House of Lords and then, only by passing an Act of Parliament.

Certain cases may be referred to the European Court of Human Rights in Luxembourg. In addition, individuals have made the British Government change its practices in a number of areas as result of petitions to the European Court of Human Rights.

The legal system also includes juvenile courts (which deal with offenders under seventeen) and coroners’ courts (which investigate violent, sudden or unnatural deaths). There are administrative tribunals, which make quick, cheap and fair decisions with much less formality. Tribunals deal with professional standards, disputes between individuals, and disputes between individuals and government departments (for example, over taxation).

 

Text 3 (В) Justice and Law in the United Kingdom of