Language practice and comprehension check

TASK I Explain the usage of the following passive verb-forms; translate the sentences:

1. From the 1870s until the 1970s the constitution was dominated by a communitarian ideology.

2. The powers of the House of Lords representing the old balanced constitution were diminished and executive discretionary power increased.

3. Governmental functions which had previously been exercised by local bodies were increasingly concentrated in central departments under the control of ministers answerable to Parliament.

4. The eighteenth-century statute book was dominated by laws protecting property policed by the courts.

5. Nineteenth century public health and safety legislation was followed, in the early twentieth century, by substantial housing and urban development legislation.

6. Immediately after the Second World War a wide-ranging welfare system was introduced.

7. The dominant economic belief was that the economy should be driven by the state.

8. Subordinate legislation and non-statutory rules were made by the executive on a large scale with limited parliamentary scrutiny.

9. Thousands of administrative tribunals staffed by government appointees were created to deal with the disputes generated by this expansion of state activity.

10. The traditional ideas of the rule of law as embodied in the common law and of accountability to Parliament were not seriously challenged even though the executive seemed to have outgrown both these constraints.

11. From the 1960s various “Ombudsmen” were set up to investigate complaints by citizen against government but without enforceable powers.

12. However since the 1960s the courts have strengthened their powers of control over the executive so much that worries have been expressed that they are interfering too much in politics.

TASK II Use the verbs in brackets in the correct form in the following passage about Civil Service :

1) British civil servants are servants of the Crown, which in practice (mean) the government. 2) Responsibility for the Civil Service (divide) between the Cabinet Office and the Treasury. The Prime Minister is Minister for the Civil Service.

3) Some civil servants (work) in government departments. 4) They (expect) to work with a government formed by any political party and to remain fair and impartial, whatever their personal opinions. 5) A change of government, or the appointment of a new minister in charge of a department, (not involve) a change of its civil servants. This is very useful to ministers who are new to an area of responsibility and have little time to learn about it. 6) The most senior civil servant in a department (call) the Permanent Secretary.

7) Ministers (not allow) to ask civil servants to do work that (intend) to promote a political party. 8) In the past ministers (rely) almost entirely on the advice of their civil servants when making decisions. 9) The power that senior civil servants had over politicians humorously (show) in the television series “ Yes, Minister”. 10) More recently, party politics and pressure from Members of Parliament and commercial organizations may (have) greater influence on decision-making.

11) Most civil servants directly (not involve) in government. 12) In 1999 there (be) about 500 000 civil servants, a quarter of whom (employ) in the Ministry of Defence.

TASK III Fill in the following table to describe the main trends in the law-making policy in XVIII-XX centuries.

Century	Legislation passed

TASK IV Paraphrase the following sentences from the text:

1. Impelled by the demands of a larger electorate, the executive branch of government began to increase in size and range of powers.

2. The constitution made only marginal responses to these fundamental changes.

3. The Franks Committee (1958) recommended marginal reforms which buttressed the powers of the courts and supplemented parliamentary scrutiny of the executive.

4. Recognising the inevitability of executive discretion and reluctant to appear to be challenging the majority, the courts began to defer to political decisions.

5. In the inter-war period, opposite fears were expressed, some believing that the executive had taken over, others worried that an individualistically minded judiciary would frustrate popular programmes.

TASK V Express your opinion about the following QUOTATION:

For forms of government let fools contest;

Whate’er is best administer’d is best. (Alexander Pope, Essay on Man)

TEXT 4 “HOLLOWED-OUT GOVERNMENT”

The election of the Conservative government in 1979 led to a return to individualistic ideology perhaps generated by the growing awareness that the welfare state cost more than the UK's declining economy could support. Most of the nationalised industries and also water supply and sewage services were privatized. The central government increased its powers of control over local authorities to prevent them from retaining the communitarian orthodoxy. The central government attempted to confineitself to the roles of coordinator and regulator by devolving the delivery of services to a range of miscellaneous bodies both public and private and within its own apparatus set up quasi-autonomous agencies. It has been argued that although central government retains formal control, for example through powers to make appointments, to lay down policy guidelines and to regulate these dispersed bodies, it has neither the resources nor the will to co-ordinate its increasingly dispersed progeny.

This is an aspect of a wider development which raises doubts about the role of the state and about representative democracy. The traditional state has been attacked both from without and within. The “global economy” is a fashionable idea. It will be recalled that the origins of the state were military as a method of defending a community against foreign aggression. Until the Second World War the international community was regarded as a Hobbesian state of nature where the rule of law operated within state boundaries, the state being the guarantor of welfare, the stage-manager of the economy and the protagonist in the international arena. However the Second World War persuaded the international community to develop common principles regulating the economy and also concerning “crimes against humanity” such as genocide and torture, a process that has steadily developed through a series of treaties some of which, for example the European Convention on Human Rights and the Torture Convention (1984), have been incorporated into UK law.

Technology has speeded up communications to such an extent that states have become economically interdependent, allegedly to a greater extent than before, and large international firms are wealthier than many states. Governments have lost levers of power such as control over flows of money and other information. These economic developments are reflected by the growth of international bodies such as the World Trade Organisation and the EU, albeit the latter might be regarded as the last gasp of old-fashioned statism with its claim to a “European” identity. The balance of power that concentrated military efforts on perceived threats from overseas was destroyed in the 1980s by the collapse of the Soviet Union. This released many local pressures within the old state boundaries based on ethnic, religious and racial conflicts and led to an increased concern for human rights both of individuals and minority groups to which state boundaries are largely irrelevant.

These developments do not make the state redundant. Indeed sentiments about globalisation and the obsolescence of the nation state, similar to those expressed today, were prevalent in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries until the dream was interrupted by the First World War. Territorial units of government may be an essential requirement of the human species. The state remains vital as a guarantor of order, a major contributor to economic well-being and a last resort for the vulnerable. It is unlikely that the more radical predictions that the state's functions will be entirely superseded by international bodies, local communities and private companies, will be realised in the foreseeable future.

TASK I Compare the following definitions of state and determine in which meaning the word is used in the text:

State – A sovereign and independent entity capable of entering into relations with other states and enjoying international legal personality. To qualify as a state, the entity must have: (1) a permanent population; (2) a defined territory over which it exercises authority; (3) an effective government. Oxford Dictionary of LAW

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