III. Agree or disagree with the statements:

1. In 1512 the Magna Carta was adopted.

2. The Magna Carta provided certain guarantees and protection against unreasonable acts of the king.

3. The English Bill of Rights was adopted in 1689.

4. The American colonists adopted the principles of the Magna Carta and Common Law.

5. The principles of the Magna Carta became the foundation of the legal system of US federal government.

6. The Common law and the Roman law differ in origins and methods.

7. The Roman civil law originated in codes.

8. The English common law originated in decisions of judges based on widely held customs of the people.

9. The English colonies in America didn’t recognize the English law.

10. The Magna Carta has been never revised.

IV. Answer the questions:

1. When was the Magna Carta adopted?

2. What did the Magna Carta provide?

3. What principles of law did first American states adopt after they broke away from Great Britain?

4. How do the two great systems of law, Common law and the Roman civil law, differ?

5. What systems of law are there in Western world now?

V. Match the first part of the sentence (1-5) with the second one (a-e).

1	English common law uniquely provides for trial	a	of the common law.
2	The two great systems of law are the Common law of the English-speaking world	b	and protection against unreasonable acts of the king.
3	These principles became the foundation of the legal system	c	and the Roman civil law found on the continent of Europe .
4	The colonists adopted the principles	d	by a jury of one's peers.
5	The Magna Carta provided certain guarantees	e	of US federal government and of all the states.

VI. Make up a plan of the text.

VII. Retell the text in a written form (in English or Ukrainian). Text 28. Legislature in great britain

I. Read and memorize the following words and word combinations:

Bicameral – двопалатний, a constituency – виборчий округ, majority – більшість, hereditary – спадковий, legislation – законодавство, to delay – відкласти, judicial cases – судові справи.

II. Listen to the text: Legislature in Great Britain

Parliament is the centre of the political system in the United Kingdom. Parliament is bicameral, consisting of the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

The UK is divided into parliamentary constituencies of broadly equal population, each of which elects a Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons. In modern times, all Prime Ministers and Leaders of the Opposition have been drawn from the Commons, not the Lords.

One party usually has a majority in Parliament. The monarch normally asks a person commissioned to form a government simply whether it can survive in the House of Commons, something which majority governments are expected to be able to do. It is worth noting that a government is not formed by a vote of the House of Commons, merely a commission from the monarch. The House of Commons gets its first chance to indicate confidence in the new government when it votes on the Speech from the Throne (the legislative program proposed by the new government).

The House of Lords was previously a hereditary, aristocratic chamber. Major reform has been partially completed and it is currently a mixture of hereditary members, bishops of the Church of England known as Lords Spiritual and appointed members (life peers, with no hereditary right for their descendants to sit in the House). It currently acts to review legislation formed by the House of Commons, with the power to propose amendments, and exercises a veto. This allows it to delay legislation it does not approve of for twelve months.

The House of Lords is currently also the final court of appeal within the United Kingdom, although in practice only a small subset of the House of Lords, known as the Law Lords, hears judicial cases. However, the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 outlines plans for a Supreme Court of the United Kingdom to replace the role of the Law Lords.