Language practice and comprehension check

TASK I Make up adjectives from the following nouns and group them according to the suffixes used:

Power, influence, theory, use, force, function, monarchy, system, wealth, commerce, skill, law, custom, origin, office, purpose, favour, practice, history, period, body, parliament, pyramid, reason, basis, judge, right, king, decision.

TASK II a) Match the words on the right with their synonyms on the left:

summon

originate as

dismiss

evolve

enact

transmit

confer

aspire

grant

develop

gather

transfer

dissolve

adopt

appear as

aim at

b) Use the verbs conferred, enacted, dismissed, evolved, aspires, granted, enact, conferred, transfer, enacted, developed, enacted, granted, to dismiss, adopted, summoned, originated, develop, dismiss, gathered, in the following sentences;

c) Translate the sentences:

1. With the consent of his subjects in Parliament, the King exercised an absolute power to make law, … by and subject only to God.

2. The King in Parliament represented the Church as well as the temporal realm: “the parliament... together represents the estate of all the people within this realm, that is to say of the whole catholic church thereof.”

3. Medieval jurists and political writers … the theory that sovereignty is the supreme authority in the state.

4. Privy Council held that, when the Imperial Parliament … power to colonial legislatures to make laws for 'the peace, welfare and good government' of their colonies, it … them power of the same nature, as plenary and absolute, as its own power.

5. Give to the Judges a power of annulling Parliament's acts; and you … a portion of the supreme power from an assembly which the people have had some share, at least, in choosing, to a set of men in the choice of whom they have had not the least imaginable share: to a set of men appointed solely by the Crown.

6. Some law-makers, such as municipal councils, which make by-laws, exercise an authority … on them by a higher law, made by a superior law-maker.

7. John Toland insisted that the legislature in any age had as much right to make new laws as any previous one, and that ‘to … a law for posterity, is no more, than recommending a thing to their choice; since if they think there's a reason for it, they can no more be divested of the power to repeal any law … by their ancestors, than we are of repealing such laws as have been … by ours.”

8. Parliament might have to demand that the judges be …, and replaced with more compliant ones willing to overrule their predecessors' decision.

9. Democracy … to … important civic virtues: to reduce feelings of powerlessness, enhance self-confidence and self-respect, and promote education, a broadening of horizons, and an appreciation of other points of view.

10. The sovereignty of Parliament … from that of the medieval English King.

11. It was often argued that if legislators violated a constitution … by the people, the only lawful remedies were for the people … them at the next election.

12. A government and Parliament are more likely to use their powers to appoint, …, and threaten judges, in order to reduce them to submission.

13. The notion that the magnates were the King's partners or companions in government … in the traditional feudal relationship between lord and vassal.

14. After Richard III was defeated and killed at Bosworth, Henry VII quickly … a Parliament which … yet another Act of Succession (1485) to resolve 'all ambiguities and questions.'

TASK III a)Match the words on the right with their antonyms on the left:

insignificant

efficient

questionable

superior

separate

official

considerable

harmonious

unimportant

subordinate

informal

important

useless

unfriendly

undisputable

inferior

b) Use the adjectives useless, superior, separate, considerable, superior, harmonious, inferior, superior, harmonious, questionable, superior, insignificant, efficient, superior, official, inferior in the following sentences;

c) Translate the sentences:

1) Juror’s impartiality became … during trial.

2) The orthodox view is that a judgment lays down a rule or principle that is binding on … courts in all cases of the same kind.

3) The King was restrained not “by the … and compulsive part of the laws, but by the exemplary only.”

4) Federal law preempts more exacting state standards, even though both could be complied with and state standards were … with purposes of federal law.

5) Should the legislators “think fit positively to enact a law, there is no power which can control them. If a Court may take it upon them to dispense with, and act in direct violation of a plain and known law of the State, all other Courts either … or … may do the like; and the Legislatures become ….”

6) Parliament was not an institution … from the King; it was convened by the King to advise and assist him in transacting the affairs of the realm, and its statutes were acts of the King and community jointly.

7) As an employer, government is interested in attaining and maintaining full production from its employees in a … environment.

8) In common law cases judges in … courts have … authority to change the law according to their moral convictions.

9) Of course, a change in a fundamental legal rule has to start somewhere: someone has to initiate the requisite change in the … consensus that constitutes it.

10) It seems that, although no person was equal or … to the King, the combined authority of the King and earls was … to the authority of the King alone.

11) The immediate trigger of civil war in 1642 was a dispute between the two Houses of Parliament and the King concerning their respective constitutional authority. Neither the King nor the two Houses would have accepted that the judges had authority to resolve their dispute, since both claimed to possess an authority … to the judges'.

12) 'Nothing can be more scornful and …, than the worthless group of people, when they are instigated against a king, who is supported by the two branches of the legislature'.

TASK IV Translate the following sentences and define the meanings of the derivatives: confer, conference:

1. So even if we believe that property-holding is a legitimate reason for conferring political power (and many argue that this remains a key assumption of the constitution although not to be found in any legal rule), the modern House of Lords is difficult to explain on this basis.

2. “The word “Parliament” which in origin meant merely a parley or conference entered into official language about the middle of the thirteenth century. It described formal conferences between the King and his officials and a number of the tenants-in-chief summoned for that purpose”.

In Latin confer meant “ to compare ”, whence the present meaning of the abbreviated form of compare, namely cf. The unabbreviated form confer no longer has this meaning; today it means 1) (intransitively) “to come together to take counsel and exchange views” – to confer with or 2) (transitively) “to bestow, usually from a position of authority) – to confer … on.

TASK V Insert who, which, that into their proper places:

1. The great landowners transmitted to their descendants their property and the titles and power … went with it.

2. Inheritance was originally based upon the feudal system under … every landowner owed allegiance to a superior landlord.

3. There was also an “inner” council of close advisers … developed into the Privy Council.

4. During the medieval period, law-making power lay mainly with the judges … in theory were supposed to declare the general and local customs of the realm (the common law).

5. The word “Parliament” … in origin meant merely a parley or conference entered into official language about the middle of the thirteenth century.

6. The period from the seventeenth to early nineteenth century, during … the Lords still had considerable power and influence, playing a key role in the classical theory of mixed government, a role … has echoes today.

7. It is worthwhile noting that as a result of the reforms in land law … were made in the nineteenth century succession to peerages became governed by different rules from succession to the land itself.

TASK VI Explain the following QUOTATION:

Parliament itself would not exist in its present form had people not defied the law. (Arthur Scargill, in Select Committee on Employment, 2 April 1980)

TEXT 4 THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT TODAY

The system of parliamentary government in the United Kingdom is not based on a written constitution, but is the result of a gradual evolution going back several centuries. The essence of the system today, as it has been for more than two centuries, is that the political leaders of the executive are members of the legislature and are responsible to an elected assembly. The Government's tenure of office depends on the support of a majority in the elected House of Commons, where it has to meet informed and public criticism by an Opposition capable of succeeding it as a government should the electorate so decide.

Modified to suit varying local environments, British parliamentary practice has exercised a profound influence on the development of parliamentary institutions overseas, both in the other countries of the Commonwealth and in developing foreign countries.

The supreme legislative authority in the United Kingdom is the Queen in Parliament, that is to say, the Queen and the two Houses of Parliament — the House of Lords and the elected House of Commons.

The three elements of Parliament are outwardly separate; they are constituted on different principles; they do different work in different places; and they meet together only on occasions of symbolic significance such as the coronation, or the State opening of Parliament when the Commons are summoned by the Queen to the House of Lords. As a law-making organ of State, however, Parliament is a corporate body and with certain exceptions cannot legislate without the concurrence of all its parts.

By the passing of the Parliament Act 1911 the life of a Parliament was fixed at five years (although it may be dissolved and a general election held before the expiry of the legal term). Because it is not subject to the type of legal restraints imposed on the legislatures of countries which have formal written constitutions, Parliament, during this period, is virtually free to legislate as it pleases: generally to make and unmake any law; to legalise past illegalities and make void and punishable what was lawful when done, and thus reverse the decisions of the ordinary law courts; and to destroy firmly established conventions or turn a convention into binding law. If both Houses agreed, it could even prolong its own life beyond the normal period of five years without consulting the electorate. In other words, Parliament is sovereign.

The two-chamber system is an integral part of British parliamentary government. The House of Lords and the House of Commons sit separately and are constituted on entirely different principles, but the process of legislation is the duty of both Houses.

Since the beginning of Parliament, the balance of power between the two Houses has undergone a complete change. The process of development and adaptation, which has been going on by fits and starts for several centuries, has been greatly accelerated during the past 80 years or so. In modern practice the centre of parliamentary power is in the popularly elected House of Commons, but until the twentieth century the Lords' power of veto over measures proposed by the Commons was, theoretically, unlimited. The Parliament Act 1911 curtailed the veto of the Lords to a period of two years for Bills passed by the Commons in three successive sessions (whether of the same Parliament or not), and abolished the veto altogether in connection with Bills dealing exclusively with expenditure or taxation.

These limitations to the powers of the House of Lords (further strengthened by the Parliament Act 1949, which reduced the delaying powers of the Lords from two years to one for Bills passed by the Commons in two successive sessions) are based on the belief that in respect of legislation the principal function of the modern House of Lords is revision and that its object is to complement the House of Commons and not to rival it.

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