VI. Branches of Law

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

Law: what is it?

Law is a body of official rules andregulations. It is generally found in constitutions, legislation and judicial decisions. Law is used to govern a society and to control the behaviour of its members. The nature and functions of law have varied throughout history. In modern societies, some authorized body such as a legislature or a court makes the law. It is supported by the coercive power of the state, which enforces the law by means of appropriate penalties or remedies.

Formal legal rules and actions are usually distinguished from other means of social control and guides for behaviour such as morality, public opinion, and custom or tradition. Of course, a lawmaker may respond to public opinion or other pressures, and a formal law may prohibit what is morally unacceptable.

Law serves a variety of functions. Laws against crimes, for example, help to maintain a peaceful, orderly, relatively stable society. Courts contribute to social stability by resolving disputes in a civilized fashion. Property and contract laws facilitate business activities. Laws limit the powers of government and help to provide some degree of freedom that would not otherwise be possible. Law has also been used as a mechanism for social change; for instance, at various times laws have been passed to improve the quality of individual life in matters of health, education, and welfare.

Law is not completely made by humans; it also includes natural law. The best-known version of this view, that God's law is supreme, has had considerable influence in the United States and other Western societies. The civil rights movement, for example, was at least partially inspired by the belief in natural law. Such a belief seems implicit in the view that law should serve to promote human dignity, as for instance by the enforcement of equal rights for all. Muslim societies also embrace a kind of natural law, which is closely linked to the religion of Islam.

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

1. judicial decision	а. з точки зору
2. remedy	b.наприклад
3. lawmaker	с.судове рішення
4.in a civilized fashion	d.примусове виконання
5.for instance	е.цивілізовано
6.coercive	f.примусовий
7. in the view	g.законотворець
8. enforcement	h.зaciб судового захисту

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Civil law

Civil Law is a the body of private law used in those countries in which the legal system is based on ancient Roman law modified by medieval and modern influences. Civil law is used in most nations in Europe and Latin America, as well as in some countries in Asia and Africa. The law of Great Britain, the United States, Canada, and a number of other nations is based on English common law, which differs from civil law in origin and other important respects.

The term civil law is also employed to distinguish those legal codes that deal with civil relationships (such as citizenship, marriage, divorce, and certain contractual arrangements) from other codes such as those dealing with criminal law.

The civil law originated in ancient Rome. One of the principal characteristics of Roman civilization was the development of strong legal institutions. In the 6th century, a commission appointed by the Emperor Justinian collected and consolidated all the sources of law, including the opinions of the great legal scholars during previous centuries. The result was the Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil Law), also called the Justinian Code, a comprehensive code with the accumulated wisdom and experience of many generations of Roman jurists.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, the authority of the Corpus Juris began to decline. The stage was then set for the systematic and comprehensive codification of modern civil law. The most influential, although not the first, codification effort was the enactment, during the Napoleonic period, of the five basic codes of France. In the course of the 19th century, most civil-law countries similarly codified their legal statutes.

Codification of the civil law had several major consequences: (1) After their enactment, the codes constituted comprehensive and authoritative legal texts that superseded all earlier authorities in the teaching of law as well as in legal practice. (2) Within each nation-state, the codes brought about a strong measure of national unification of the law. (3) In their substance, the codes differed from one nation to another. In recent years, however, there were efforts, in the nations of the European Union and elsewhere, to replace certain isolated national laws with international legal practices.

From its origins in continental Europe, the civil law gradually spread to all of the areas in Africa, Asia, and Latin America that were colonies of France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, or Portugal. When they gained independence, most of the former colonies continued the civil-law orientation of their legal systems. Civil-law systems were also voluntarily adopted in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Turkey.

In a number of countries, moreover, the civil law constitutes an important component of a mixed legal system. For example, in Scotland, South Africa, and Sri Lanka, the legal system combines civil- and common-law elements. In North America the same phenomenon can be observed in the state of Louisiana and in the province of Quebec. The legal systems of many North African and Middle Eastern nations are strongly influenced by the French civil-law codes, even though in some areas of law — especially those relating to the family and to family property — these countries tend to follow Islamic tradition.

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

1 unification of law	a основні наслідки
2 accumulated wisdom	b уніфікація права
3 origin	с змішані правові системи
4 comprehensive code	d всеохоплюючий кодекс
5 strong legal institution	e сильні правові установи
6 family property	f походження
7 major consequences	g накопичена мудрість
8 mixed legal systems	h сімейна власність

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