Vocabulary tasks

A Find in the text above the proper words for the following definitions.

1 An agreement which ends a dispute, sometimes made out of court.

2 The court’s decision on a case.

3 An agreement for someone to use a property for a certain period of time in exchange for regular payment.

4 You have this when you are legally responsible for something.

5 A formal legal agreement, usually in writing.

6 The opposite of legal.

7 This is when someone breaks a formal written agreement.

8 The laws passed by a country’s parliament.

9 To take legal action against someone in civil court.

10 A part of a written legal agreement.

11 A man who rents land or property to someone.

12 This gives you the right to make and sell an invention.

13 A private wrong against a person or his / her property.

14 A state legislature.

15 A piece of business that is done between people, especially an act of buying or selling.

16 You regularly pay money to somebody so that you can use his/her land.

Text b The Cost of Legal Services.

The very high cost of legal services and litigation in England means that for people of modest means, going to law is almost impossible. In criminal cases, also, it means that the State has to provide and pay for lawyers because it is today regarded as a fundamental human right that anybody accused of serious crimes, with the risk of being sent to jail, must be provided with legal counsel to defend him. In civil matters, also, there is an extensive system of legal aid, paid for by taxpayers, though this is only available free to the poorer members of the community. To bring a case before a court a citizen who cannot afford to pay himself, can apply for legal aid, which is granted at the discretion of the authorities, where they are advised by lawyers that there appears to be a reasonable case in law. Citizens of moderate means may be required to pay part of the cost themselves.

Recently, there have been a variety of attempts to provide legal remedies of some kind to people who do not feel they can afford the burden of litigation. For instance, many public and commercial institutions have recently appointed Ombudsmen who can investigate and deal with complaints at their own expense (their costs are met by the institutions they supervise, even though they are independent of them), and they can often award compensation to claimants. Indeed, they are sometimes more useful than ordinary litigation because they can rely on standards of fair practice as well as on the law itself, so claimants may find it easier to obtain substantial justice from an Ombudsman than from the law, where claimants can still be defeated by technicalities. Today Ombudsmen exist for several distinct types of commercial activity, such as the work of banking, insurance and the home-lending institutions which the English call building societies. The legal professions also have an Ombudsman of their own to deal with complaints against lawyers. In addition there are Ombudsmen for many public services, such as the National Health Service, and local government services, as well as the national Ombudsman who can investigate allegations of maladministration in the civil service or government departments, though only at the request of a member of parliament. Ombudsmen work quite differently from courts. They operate in private, they do not hold hearings, but rely just on documents and even letters. They are much less formal than courts, and because they are responsible for making their own inquiries, they do not need barristers to present cases to them. But their powers are limited in various ways. They can usually only order compensation in fairly minor cases, and they do not have any general power to enforce the law, but only to deal with problems arising in particular kinds of institutions or relationships, for instance, between a client and bank or insurance company, or between a citizen and his municipal authority. So although Ombudsmen can be very useful, they do not necessarily eliminate the demand for ordinary litigation.