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The Evolution of Modern Western Legal Systems.

The two great law families of modern Western civilization are civil law (also called Romano-Germanic law) and common law (also called Anglo-American law). They are descended from ancient Roman law and ancient Germanic law and have been altered by various customary, ecclesiastical, feudal, commercial, and sociopolitical influences. A third law family, Socialist law, was in use in the now-defunct Socialist states of eastern Europe.

Most of the laws of the legal systems of continental Europe are traditionally classified as civil law. This type of law spread to Latin America and, later, to those countries of Asia and Africa that found in necessary to westernize their laws, such as Japan (in which American law has also had great influence), Thailand, Turkey, and Ephiopia. It also prevails in those regions that were colonies, protectorates, or trust territories of France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, including Morocco, Algeria, Indonesia, and Somalia. Civil law, supplemented by Islamic law, has come to prevail in several countries of the Middle East and North Africa.

Common law is the law of England and the law of those countries in which the law of England has been received or implanted. Although common law often transformed or supplemented by local or religious traditions, its principal features have been preserved. Common-law countries that have remained closest tо the English tradition include Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Republic of Ireland, and the present and former British areas of the West Indies. Common law also prevails in India, Pakistan, Myanmar (Burma), Malaysia, and Singapore, where it is supplemented in matters of personal status by religious laws. In Liberia and in most of those parts of Africa and Oceania that were British colonies, protectorates, or trust territories, common law is supplemented by native customs. The United States has developed a type of common law in many respect from the English.

Choose the right variant:

1. The two great law families of modern Western civilization

1. have never been changed;

2. have been altered by various influences;

3. have been altered only by sociopolitical influences.

2. The law of the Japanese legal system is classified as

1. common law;

2. socialist law;

3. civil law

3. Common – law countries are:

1. France;

2. Spain;

3. Canada.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMMON LAW IN THE UNITED STATES.

The first English settlers on the Atlantic seaboard of North America brought with them only elementary notion of law. Colonial charters conferred on them the traditional legal privileges of Englishmen, such as habeas corpus and the right tо trial before a jury of one’s peers, but there were few judges, lawyers, or lawbooks, and English court decisions were slow to reach them. Each colony passed its own statutes, and governors or legislative bodies acted as court. Civil and criminal cases were tried in the same courts, and lay juries enjoyed wide powers. English laws passed after the date of settlement did not automatically apply in the colonies, and even presettlement legislation was liable to adaptation. English cases were not binding precedents. Several of the American colonies introduced substantial legal codes, such as those of Massachusetts in 1648 and of Pennsylvania in 1682.

By the late 17^th century, lawyers were practicing in the colonies, using English lawbooks and following English procedures and forms of action. In 1701 Rhode Island legislated to receive English law in full, subject to local legislation, and the same happened in the Carolinas in 1712 and 1715. Other colonies, in practice, also applied the common law with local variation.

Many legal battles in the period leading up tо the War of Independence were fought on common-law principles, and half of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence were lawyers. The US Constitution itself uses traditional English legal terms.

After 1776 anti-British feeling led some Americans to advocate a fresh legal system, but European laws were diverse, couched in foreign languages having unfamiliar turns of thought, and unavailable in textbook form. Blackstone’s Commentaries, reprinted in America in1771, was widely used, even though new English statutes and decisions were officially ignored.

In the 1830s two great judges, James Kent of New York and Joseph Story of Massachusetts, produced important commentaries on common law and equity, emphasizing the need for legal certainty and for security of title to property. These works followed the common-law tradition, which has never been fundamentally altered in the United States, except in Louisiana, where French civil law has survived.

Answer the questions, choosing the right variant:

1) Why did governors or legislative bodies act as court?

1. English court decisions were slow to reach them.

2. That let them enjoy wide powers.

3. There were few judges, lawyers and lawbooks.

2) What did anti-British feeling lead to?

1. … to a fresh legal system.

2. English cases were not binding precedents.

3. Several of the American colonies introduced substantial legal cases.

Change of policies.

Government policy itself may be an important agency of political change. The social economic policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and the Socialist programs implemented by the British Labour Party after 1945 are examples. In both cases, government policies resulted in far-reaching modifications to the functioning of the political system: a vast expansion in the role of government in the economy, the use of taxes to redistribute wealth, an increase in the political influence of organized labour, and the implementation of national programs of social welfare. Major policy change of this type, or course, is often a response to widespread pressures and demands that, if not satisfied by the policy changes are imposed by a government to achieve the political, social, and economic goals of a single class, of an elite, or of the political leadership itself.

Many important question a remain as to the reasons for change, the ways in which change occurs, and the effects of change. Political scientists are still not completely certain, for example. Why some systems have managed to avoid violent political change for considerable periods, while in other systems change is typically accomplished through coups d’etat, revolutions, and often forms of internal warfare. As suggested above, the explanation may have much to do with the existence in countries such as the United States and Great Britain of well-established political institutions that permit peaceful change, the presence in the population of widely shared attitudes toward the government, and the existence of basic agreement on the legitimacy of state authority. Clearly, however, other factors are also involved. Perhaps one of the chief goals of the study of political systems should be to the determine as exactly as possible the conditions and prerequisites of those forms of change that permit the peaceful and evolutionary development of human society.

Answer the questions.

1) What does political change depend on?

2. Why have some systems managed to avoid violent political change for considerable periods?

Public Administration.

While the functional objectives of government administration vary from system to system, all countries that are technologically developed have evolved systems of public administration. A number of common features maybe detected in all such systems. The first is the hierarchical, or pyramidal, character of the organization by which a single chief executive oversees a few subordinates, and so on until a great structure of personnel is integrated and focussed on the components of a particular program. A second common feature is the division of labour or specialization within the organization. Each individual in the hierarchy has specialized responsibilities and tasks. A third feature is the maintenance of detailed official records and the existence of precise paper procedures through which the personnel of the system communicate with each other and with the public. Finally, tenure of office is also characteristic of all public bureaucracies.

The various national civil services, despite their similarities, also show important differences, particularly in the way in which individuals are recruited and in the status accorded them in the political system. The British civil service, for example, has traditionally been composed of three classes, or grades-clerical, executive, and administrative. Administrative civil servants, the highest grade, are recruited by examination from among recent university graduates. The remains in office despite changes in government ministers are drawn from this elite group. They remain in office despite changes in government and are accorded immense prestige. The U.S. civil service is organized into 18 grades. Although promotion from the lower grades is the typical means by which positions in the top grades are filled, there is also a flow of individuals into senior positions from private business and the professions. The U.S. equivalent of the administrative civil servant in Britain is usually a political appointee recruited by each new administration from private life or from a position in polities.

Answer the question.

1. How does the personnel of the system of public administration communicate with each other and with the public?

2. Which grade can recent university graduates be referred to?

The American two-party system.

The United States has always had a two-party system, first in the opposition between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. Then in the competition between the Republicans and Democrats. Presidential election have played an important role in the formation of this type of two-party system.

American parties are different from their counterparts on other Western countries. In comparison with European political movements American parties have appeared as two varieties of one liberal party.

The American parties have a flexible and decentralized structure, marked by the absence of discipline and rigid hierarchy. Organization may be relatively strong and homogeneous at the local level, but such control is much weaker on the state level and practically nonexistent on the national level. It is true that United States has not two parties but 100—that is, two in each state. But it is also true that each party develops a certain degree of national unity for the presidential election and that the leadership of the president within his party gives the victorious party some cohesion. In voting, Republicans and Democrats are usually found on both sides. An alliance between liberal Republicans and Democrats against conservative Republicans and Democrats tends to develop. But neither bloc is stable, and the alignment varies from one vote to another. As a consequence, despite the existence of a two-party system, no stable legislative majority is possible. In order to have his budget adopted and his legislation passed, the president of the United States must carefully try to gather the necessary votes on every question, bearing the wearisome task of constantly forming alliances. The American two-party system is thus a pseudo-two-party system, because each party provides only a loose framework within which shifting coalitions are formed.

Identify whether the sentences correspond to the contents of the next statements.

1. American parties have appeared as two different parties.

2. The American parties are characterized by rigid hierarchy and discipline.

3. The main feature of the political system of the U.S. Is a stable legislative majority.