2. Match the words and expressions on the left with their definitions on the right. One has been done for you as an example.

1. to violate

2. crime

3. to kidnap

4. to assassinate

5. law-breaker

6. evidence

7. accomplice

8. punishment

9. murder

10. criminal

11. witness

12. assault

13. possessing an

offensive weapon

14. felony

15. violence

16. homicide

1. to seize or detain a person

by force and often for ransom

2. violation, a grave offence

3. to break (a law, a treaty, an oath)

4. a person who violates the law

5. to murder smb for political reasons

or a reward

6. someone who sees a crime or an accident

7. everything witnesses say in court

8. a prison sentence or fine given to a criminal

9. a person who has committed a crime

10. unjust exercise of force; force unlawfully exercised against the laws and against public liberty

11. a crime of graver nature than a misdemeanour

12. one who helps a criminal in a

criminal act

13. a violent physical or verbal attack

14. an act of killing a human being

15. unlawfully killing someone

16. having a weapon which could be used to attack someone

3. Compose a few sentences using the terms from the table. Ask your partner to translate them.

4. Give synonyms to the following:

1. law-breaker/violator (give 4 words) _______________________________

2. law-breaking/violation _______________________________

3. abduction _______________________________

4. ruffian _______________________________

5. to kill _______________________________

6. to break/violate the law _______________________________

UNIT 5___________________________________________________________

CONTRACT LAW

Pre-reading tasks____________________________________________________

1. What is the key word that characterizes property law vs. Contract law?

2. Match the following English words and expressions with their Ukrainian equivalents:

1. mutual assent

2. commitment of individuals

3. to secure the debt

4. to handle disputes

5. injured party

6. ties of kinship

7. debt slavery

8. caretaker

1. обов’язки осіб

2. забезпечити борг

3. родинні зв’язки

4. взаємна згода

5. вирішувати спори

6. той, хто має тимчасову

відповідальність (за щось)

7. сторона, яка понесла збитки

8. боргове рабство

Reading tasks_______________________________________________________

Read the text to understand what information is of primary importance or new for you.

Contract law

A contract, in the simplest definition, is a promise enforceable by law. The promise may be to do something or to refrain from doing something. The making of a contract requires the mutual assent of two or more persons, one of them ordinarily making an offer and another accepting.

If one of the parties fails to keep the promise, the other is entitled to recourse against him. The law of contracts considers such questions as whether a contract exists, what the meaning of it is, whether a contract has broken, and what compensation is due the injured party.

Contract law is the product of a business civilization. It will not be found, in any significant degree, in precommercial societies. Most primitive societies have other ways of enforcing the commitments of individuals; for example, through ties of kinship or by the authority of religion. In an economy based on barter, most transactions are self-enforcing because the transaction is complete on both sides at the same moment. Problems may arise if the goods exchanged are later found to be defective, but these problems will be handled through property law – with its penalties for taking or spoiling the property of another – rather than through contract law.

Even when transactions do not take the form of barter, primitive societies continue to work with notions of property rather than of promise. In early forms of credit transactions, kinship ties secured the debt, as when a tribe or a community gave hostages until the debt was paid. Other forms of security took the form of pledging land or pawning an individual into «debt slavery». Some credit arrangements were essentially self-enforcing: livestock, for example, might be entrusted to a caretaker who received for his services a fixed percentage of the offspring. In other cases – constructing a hut, clearing a field, or building a boat – enforcement of the promise to pay was more difficult but still was based on concepts of property. In other words, the claim for payment was based not on the existence of a bargain or promise but on the unjust detention of another's money or goods. When a worker sought to obtain his wages, the tendency was to argue in terms of his right to the product of his labour.

A true law of contracts – that is, of enforceable promises – implies the development of a market economy. Where a commitment's value does not vary with time, ideas of property and injury are adequate and there will be no enforcement of an agreement if neither party has performed, since in property terms no wrong has been done. In a market economy, on the other hand, a person may seek a commitment today to guard against a change in value tomorrow; the person obtaining such a commitment feels harmed by the fact that the market value differs from the agreed price.

Traditional contract law developed rules and principles controlling the voluntary assumption of obligations, regulating the performance of obligations so assumed, and providing sanctions for failure to perform.

Modern commercial practice relies to a growing extent on arbit­ration to handle disputes, especially those that arise in international transactions. There are several reasons for the growing use of arbitration. The procedure is simple, it is more expeditious, and it may be less expensive than traditional litigation. The arbitrators are frequently selected by a trade association or business group for their expert understanding of the issues in the dispute. The proceedings are private, which is advantageous when the case involves trade or business secrets. In many legal systems, the parties can authorize arbitrators to base their decision on equitable considerations that the law excludes. Finally, when the parties are from different countries, an international panel of arbitrators may offer a greater guarantee of impartiality than would a national court. Despite these advantages of arbitration, the development of contract law may suffer considerably by a withdrawal from the courts of litigation involving some of the most significant and difficult problems of the present day, all the more so because the reasoning in arbitral awards is usually not made public.

UNDERSTANDING MAIN POINTS___________________________________