Введение

Данный сборник предназначен для студентов гуманитарного факультета специальности «Юриспруденция».

Целью данного пособия является развитие умения самостоятельно читать литературу на иностранном языке, а также расширение активного и пассивного словарного запаса в области юридической терминологии.

Тематическая направленность текстов – это политическое устройство Великобритании и США. Такой выбор обусловлен учебной программой дисциплины «Английский язык» для студентов гуманитарного факультета специальности «Юриспруденция».

Сборник состоит из двух разделов (the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland и the United States of America), каждый из которых разделен на три основные части: legislative branch (законодательная ветвь власти), executive branch (исполнительная ветвь власти) и judicial branch (судебная ветвь власти).

Для удобства оценки объема материала, каждый текст завершается указанием количества печатных знаков без учета пробелов.

Сборник рассчитан на самостоятельную работу студентов, но может быть также использован во время аудиторных занятий в качестве дополнительного материала к основному учебному пособию.

Составитель надеется, что пособие будет интересно и полезно всем, кто занимается вопросами юридического характера и проявляет интерес к английскому языку.

The united kingdom of great britain and northern ireland law in great britain

English law originated in the customs of the Anglo-Saxons and of the Normans who conquered England in 1066. The Norman kings established a strong, centralized system for the administration of justice, and the royal courts developed a complex system of rules based on custom. Clashes between the power of the monarch and competing interests, the feudal barons in early times and later Parliament, produced basic legal documents that have had tremendous influence on the whole English-speaking world. The most famous of these documents are the Magna Carta, Habeas Corpus Act¹ and some others.

TEXT 1 MAGNA CARTA

In England, feudal relations between kings and their vassals, called barons, dictated the rights and duties of each. The barons provided military and other services to the king and the king provided protection and grants of land, called fiefs², to the barons. In theory the king was supposed to consult his barons before raising taxes or demanding large amounts of military service. For many years, the kings of England had used English men and money to defend English territory within France. King John acted similarly but he was relatively unsuccessful in his military campaigns. As a result, John demanded greater taxes and additional military service from his barons in order to continue fighting in France. By 1204, however, he had lost his possessions in northern France, including his family’s ancestral lands in Normandy (Normandie) and Anjou³, to the French king Philip II (Augustus). Consequently, John imposed high taxes without the barons’ consent, which was a violation of feudal law and custom.

John also alienated the Roman Catholic Church by quarrelling with Pope Innocent III⁴ over the appointment of the archbishop of Canterbury. The pope responded by placing England under an interdict in 1207 which halted all public church services in England. In 1209 John was excommunicated, or denied the services of the Church. Facing rising unrest, he attempted to strengthen his position by making peace with the Church. In 1213, John accepted the pope’s nominee, Stephen Langton, as archbishop of Canterbury. In 1214 he issued a charter granting concessions and liberties to the Roman Catholic Church in England. As a further pledge of loyalty, John also became a vassal of the pope and surrendered England to him. The pope then returned the kingdom to John as a feudal fief.

John lost any advantage he might have gained by his reconciliation with the Church when he lost the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, in what is now Belgium. He had spent the years since the loss of Normandy and Anjou in preparation for a large-scale military campaign to recover those lands from Philip II. To raise money for the campaign, John demanded more taxes and services from his subjects than ever before. In addition, he ruled them very harshly because he feared disloyalty from the English barons. But his campaign to recover his lands in France failed disastrously. When John returned to England to collect even more money, many of the English barons revolted. The rebel lords captured London but did not defeat John’s forces decisively. By the spring of 1215, a stalemate approached and the two sides began to negotiate. The Magna Carta was the result of these discussions, and John agreed to it on June 15, 1215 at Runnymede, a meadow near Windsor. (2803)

CONTENTS OF THE CHARTER

The Magna Carta of 1215 contains 63 clauses. The first restates the charter that John issued in 1214, which had granted liberties to the Church. In many clauses John promises to be less harsh in enforcing his feudal rights on the barons, and another clause states that the barons must grant to their tenants all the feudal concessions that the king has made to them. Many clauses concern the legal system; in these John promises to provide good and fair justice in various ways. The last few clauses concern enforcement of the document.

The two most important clauses of Magna Carta are among the legal clauses. Clause 40 promises, "To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay right or justice." This clause establishes the principle of equal access to the courts for all citizens without exorbitant fees. In clause 39, the king promises, "No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised or outlawed or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we go or send against him, except by the lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land⁵." This clause establishes that the king would follow legal procedure before he punished someone. Historians have debated at length the meaning in 1215 of "by lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land," and who exactly was covered by the term "free man." By the later 14th century, however, statutes interpreting the Magna Carta equated "judgement of peers" with trial by jury (which did not exist in criminal cases in 1215). Other statutes rephrased "by the law of the land" as "by due process of law⁶." These later statutes also substituted "no one" or "no man of any sort or condition" for "no free man," which extended the protections of the clause to all the king’s subjects. These protections were cited in many founding documents of the American colonies and were incorporated into the Constitution of the United States.

By most accounts only clauses 39 and 40 of the Magna Carta remain valid law in England. Eventually, the other clauses became outmoded and some were repealed. Nonetheless, the Magna Carta remains a major document in the history of individual liberty. The document establishes the principle that no person, not even the king, is above the law. More specifically, this means that the government must follow its own laws in its dealings with its citizens, just as citizens must obey the law in their dealings with other citizens. (2005)

HISTORY OF THE CHARTER

Enforcement of the Magna Carta was entrusted to 25 barons who were authorized by the document to use force if necessary to make the king obey the agreement. Despite this measure, the Magna Carta was valid for only a very short time. Almost immediately, John applied to the pope in Rome to invalidate the document. John argued that his promise to uphold the agreement had been extorted by force. The pope agreed and nullified the Magna Carta. The significance of the Magna Carta lies in its revival—not once but several times—during English history.

When news of the annulment of the Magna Carta reached England in the autumn of 1215, the barons revolted again and with greater success. During the conflict, John died in October 1216 and was succeeded by Henry III, his nine year-old son. Several barons who remained loyal to John established a council to rule for Henry III. In an attempt to end the rebellion and as a gesture of good government, the council reissued the Magna Carta. However, they removed from it the clauses that concerned King John alone. In 1217 they reissued the charter with additional changes. Finally, in 1225, Henry III reissued the Magna Carta in his name. The text of the 1225 version differed little from that of the 1217 document and has since become the legally binding version.

Henry III periodically pledged to abide by the Magna Carta as a promise to his barons that he would rule fairly. Later kings also pledged to uphold the Magna Carta as a way of improving relations with their barons. Between 1450 and 1600, however, the Magna Carta ceased to be an influential document or a factor in political debates or public discussion.

 The importance of the Magna Carta lies more in its symbolism than in its words. As a result, many modern rights have been based on the Magna Carta that were unknown in the 13th century, including Habeas Corpus⁷ and the principle of 'no taxation without representation'. Neither of these concepts existed in the original Magna Carta of 1215 but both became accepted as English law during the early 17th century.

At that time, members of Parliament, the English legislative assembly, who opposed the rule of the Stuart kings of England and sought a reduction of royal powers relied upon the Magna Carta. It was cited as an authority in the Petition of Right⁸ of 1628. It was also cited in the debates that culminated in the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, which prohibited the imprisonment of citizens without just cause. The use of the Magna Carta in these debates gave it a renewed prominence as a guarantee of the rights of citizens. The Magna Carta remains prominent and influential to this day.

Four copies of the original Magna Carta still exist. All are in England—two in the British Library in London, one in Salisbury Cathedral, and one in Lincoln Cathedral. (2339)

TEXT 2 HABEAS CORPUS

The term Habeas Corpus is the beginning of the Latin text "[that] you have the body…". It is a writ or order issued by a court to a person having custody of another, commanding him or her to produce the detained person in order to determine the legality of the detention. The writ of habeas corpus is of English origin; its original purpose was to liberate illegally detained persons, and it is still a protection against arbitrary imprisonment. 

The earliest use of the writ as a constitutional remedy against the tyranny of the Crown took place in the latter part of the 16th century, when it was applied in behalf of persons committed to prison by the Privy Council⁹. Many ways of avoiding the effectiveness of the writ were subsequently developed. In a case in 1627 the judges decided that a sufficient answer to a writ of habeas corpus was that the prisoner was detained by warrant of the Privy Council. In 1641 Parliament, by legislation that abolished the Star Chamber¹⁰, tried to increase the effectiveness of the writ. This law provided that persons who were imprisoned by a court exercising jurisdiction similar to the Star Chamber, or by command of the sovereign or of the Privy Council, should be granted a writ of habeas corpus without delay; and that the court was to determine within three days after the return of the writ the legality of such imprisonment. The subsequent refusal of judges to issue writs of habeas corpus during vacation periods resulted in the passage by Parliament of the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679. That statute imposed severe penalties on any judge who refused without good cause to issue the writ and on any officer or other person who failed to comply with it. After that date the authority of the court was paramount to any order of the sovereign, and the writ became a powerful weapon for the protection of the liberty of the monarch's subjects. The statute, however, dealt only with imprisonment for criminal offenses, and it was not until 1816 that its benefits were extended to persons detained for other reasons.

Protection against arbitrary imprisonment by the right of habeas corpus is not found in continental Europe. In the democratic countries of Western Europe, however, the codes of criminal procedure require that an arrested person be informed with reasonable promptness of the charges and be allowed to seek legal counsel. In many other countries, persons are subjected at times to lengthy periods of imprisonment without being informed of the charges. The writ of habeas corpus has been adopted in many Latin American countries, either by constitutional provision or statutory enactment, but has frequently been nullified in practice during times of political or social upheaval. (2276)