Law and Legal

Study
 My friend walked into the bar. He was
carrying a small case. We had a brief
conversation about the weather and then
started chatting about last nights football
match. I had hardly finished a sentence when
he complained that his team had lost
because the defence had been really bad.
They had played without any conviction. I
took a stand against him and said you
shouldnt judge a team on the evidence of just
one match.
 My friend walked into the bar. He was
carrying a small case. We had a brief
conversation about the weather and then
started chatting about last nights football
match. I had hardly finished a sentence when
he complained that his team had lost
because the defence had been really bad.
They had played without any conviction. I
took a stand against him and said you
shouldnt judge a team on the evidence of
just one match.
 The asked the members of the jury to
leave the court.
A solicitor gives a to the barrister which
consists of important legal documents.
My lawyer disagreed with the verdict and
wants my to go to a higher court.
The accused was shocked when he was
found guilty and given a four-year prison .
 I think she already has a for shoplifting.
As the key witness took the , there was
complete silence in the court.
The prosecution hasnt got enough to
secure a guilty verdict.
Barristers are lawyers who have been called
to the .
The lawyers for the complained that their
client could not get a fair trial.
 The judge asked the members of the jury to
leave the court.
A solicitor gives a brief to the barrister which
consists of important legal documents.
My lawyer disagreed with the verdict and
wants my case to go to a higher court.
The accused was shocked when he was
found guilty and given a four-year prison
sentence.
 I think she already has a conviction for
shoplifting.
As the key witness took the stand, there was
complete silence in the court.
The prosecution hasnt got enough evidence
to secure a guilty verdict.
Barristers are lawyers who have been called
to the bar.
The lawyers for the defence complained that
their client could not get a fair trial.
Dicionar juridic englez-romn
i romn englez
Autor: Vladimir Hanga
Editura: Lumina Lex
An apariie: 2009
Numr de pagini: 450
Dicionar juridic englez-romn i
romn englez i terminologia UE-SUA
Autor: Cecilia Voiculescu
Editura: Niculescu
An apariie: 2005
Numr de pagini: 270
Dicionar juridic englez-romn
Autor: Mona Lisa Pucheanu
Editura: CH Beck
Numr de pagini: 136
Dicionar economic englez-romn i
romn-englez
Autori: Andrei Banta, Violeta Nstsescu
Editura: Niculescu
An apariie: 2003
www.answers.com
http://www.law-dictionary.org/
http://dictionary.law.com/
http://www.legaldictionaries.org/
http://duhaime.org/LegalDictionary.aspx
http://www.rubinian.com/dictionar.php
History of English Common Law
I think it an undeniable position, that a
competent knowledge of the laws of that
society in which we live, is the proper
accomplishment of every gentleman and
scholar; an highly useful, I had almost
said essential, part of liberal and polite
education.
Sir William Blackstone:
Aims
To have a basic
understanding of the
history of common law
To identify several key
features of the English
legal system
To recognise the way the
course works, what is
expected of you and
how to be successful
What
is
Law?
Law is order,
and good law is
good order.

Aristotle in
Politics

Aristotle
Greek critic,
philosopher, physicist, &
zoologist
 Before we begin:
Essential words
Match the definitions on the left with the
words on the right. Note that (a) there
are more words than definitions, and
(b) many of the words on the right can
have more than one meaning, but only
one of those meanings is in the column
on the left.
1. Money claimed by someone as compensation for
harm done. DAMAGES
2. To send someone to prison or to a court. COMMIT
3. An adjective referring to a judge or to the law.
JUDICIAL
4. Not guilty of a crime. INNOCENT
5. Any act which is not legal. OFFENCE
6. A person who has studied law and can act for
people on legal business. LAWYER
7. A disagreement or argument between parties.
DISPUTE
8. A specialist court outside the judicial system which
examines special problems. TRIBUNAL
9. A set of arguments or facts put forward by one
side in a legal proceeding. CASE
10. An official who presides over a court. JUDGE
11. To make an allegation in legal proceedings. PLEAD
12. Someone who is accused of a crime in a criminal
case. DEFENDANT
13. A person who makes a claim against someone in a
civil court. CLAIMANT
14. An agreement reached after an argument.
SETTLEMENT
15. To hold someone legally so as to charge them with a
crime. ARREST
16. A case which is being heard by a committee, tribunal
or court of law. HEARING
17. To find that someone is guilty of a crime. CONVICT
18. Failure to carry out the terms of an agreement.
BREACH
19. To bring someone to court to answer a criminal
charge. PROSECUTE
20. To ask a high law court to change its decision or
sentence. APPEAL
21. To say that someone has committed a crime. ACCUSE
22. Having the legal ability to force someone to do
something. BINDING
23. An adjective referring to the rights and duties of
private persons or organisations. CIVIL
24. The arguments used when fighting a case. DEFENCE
25. A legal agreement between two or more parties.
CONTRACT
26. An adjective referring to crime. CRIMINAL
27. A group of 12 citizens who decide whether or not
someone is guilty in a trial. JURY
28. A written or spoken statement of facts which helps to
prove or disprove something at a trial. EVIDENCE
29. To order someone to pay money as a punishment.
FINE
30. A court order telling someone to stop doing
something, or not to do something. INJUNCTION
 THE NATURE OF LAW

One of the most obvious and most central characteristics of all societies is that
they must possess some degree of order to permit the members to interact
over a sustained period of time. Different societies, however, have different
forms of order. Some societies are highly regimented with strictly
enforced social rules, whereas others continue to function in what
outsiders might consider a very unstructured manner with apparently few
strict rules being enforced.

In our society, law plays an important part in the creation and maintenance of
social order. We must be aware, however, that law as we know it is not the
only means of creating order. Even in our society, order is not solely
dependent on law, but also involves questions of a more general
moral and political character. Our aim is to describe and explain the key
institutional aspects of that particular form of order that is legal order.
 The Nature of Law (contd)

The most obvious way in which law contributes to the

maintenance of social order is the way in which it deals with
disorder or conflict. Our interest is, therefore, particularly
concerned with the institutions and procedures, both civil
and criminal, through which law operates to ensure a
particular form of social order by dealing with various
conflicts when they arise.

Law is a formal mechanism of social control; there are,

also, other aspects to law that are less immediately
apparent, but of no less importance, such as the
inescapable political nature of law. The best approach of
law is the one that recognises that studying a legal system
is not just about learning legal rules, but is also about
considering a social institution of fundamental importance.
 CATEGORIES OF LAW

There are various ways of

categorising law, which initially
tend to confuse the non-lawyer.
What follows will set out these
categorisations in their usual
dual form, while at the same
time trying to overcome the
confusion inherent in such duality.
 COMMON LAW AND CIVIL
LAW
In this particular juxtaposition, these terms are
used to distinguish two distinct legal systems and
approaches to law. The use of the term common
law in this context refers to all those legal
systems that have adopted the historic English
legal system. Foremost among these is, of
course, the United States, but many other
Commonwealth and former Commonwealth
countries retain a common law system. The term
civil law refers to those other jurisdictions that
have adopted the European continental system of
law derived essentially from ancient Roman law,
but owing much to the Germanic tradition.
The usual distinction to be made between the two
systems is that the common law system tends to be
case-centred and hence judge-centred, allowing
scope for a discretionary, ad hoc, pragmatic
approach to the particular problems that appear
before the courts, whereas the civil law system tends
to be a codified body of general abstract
principles which control the exercise of judicial
discretion. In reality, both of these views are
extremes, with the former overemphasising the
extent to which the common law judge can impose
his discretion and the latter underestimating the
extent to which continental judges have the power to
exercise judicial discretion. It is perhaps worth
mentioning at this point that the European Court of
Justice (ECJ), established, in theory, on civil law
principles, is in practice increasingly recognising
the benefits of establishing a body of case law.
 COMMON LAW AND
EQUITY
In this particular juxtaposition, the terms refer to a particular
division within the English legal system. The common law has
been romantically and inaccurately described as the law of the
common people of England. In fact, the common law emerged as the
product of a particular struggle for political power. Prior to the
Norman Conquest of England in 1066, there was no unitary, national
legal system. The emergence of the common law represents the
imposition of such a unitary system under the auspices and control of
a centralised power in the form of a sovereign king; in that respect, it
represented the assertion and affirmation of that central
sovereign power.

Traditionally, much play is made about the circuit of judges travelling

round the country establishing the Kings peace and, in so doing,
selecting the best local customs and making them the basis of the law
of England in a piecemeal but totally altruistic procedure. The reality
of this process was that the judges were asserting the authority of the
central State and its legal forms and institutions over the disparate
and fragmented State and legal forms of the earlier feudal period.
 COMMON LAW AND EQUITY
(contd)
By the end of the 13th century, the central authority had
established its precedence at least partly through the
establishment of the common law. Originally, courts had
been no more than an adjunct of the Kings Council, the
Curia Regis, but gradually the common law courts began to
take on a distinct institutional existence in the form of the
Courts of Exchequer, Common Pleas and Kings Bench.
With this institutional autonomy, however, there developed
an institutional sclerosis, typified by a reluctance to
deal with matters that were not or could not be
processed in the proper form of action. Such a refusal
to deal with substantive injustices because they did not fall
within the particular parameters of procedural and formal
constraints by necessity led to injustice and the need to
remedy the perceived weaknesses in the common law
system. The response was the development of equity.
COMMON LAW AND EQUITY
(contd)
Plaintiffs unable to gain access to the three common
law courts might directly appeal to the sovereign, and
such pleas would be passed for consideration and
decision to the Lord Chancellor, who acted as the
kings conscience. As the common law courts became
more formalistic and more inaccessible, pleas to the
Chancellor correspondingly increased and eventually
this resulted in the emergence of a specific court
constituted to deliver equitable or fair decisions in
cases that the common law courts declined to deal
with. As had happened with the common law, the
decisions of the Courts of Equity established
principles that were used to decide later cases, so it
should not be thought that the use of equity
meant that judges had discretion to decide cases
on the basis of their personal idea of what was
just in each case.
COMMON LAW AND EQUITY
(contd)

The division between the common law courts

and the Courts of Equity continued until
they were eventually combined by the
Judicature Acts (JdA) 187375. Prior to this
legislation, it was essential for a party to
raise an action in the appropriate court for
example, the courts of law would not
implement equitable principles; the Acts,
however, provided that every court had the
power and the duty to decide cases in
line with common law and equity, with
the latter being paramount in the final
analysis.
COMMON LAW AND STATUTE
LAW

This particular conjunction follows on from the

immediately preceding section, in that the common
law here refers to the substantive law and
procedural rules that have been created by the
judiciary through the decisions in the cases they
have heard. Statute law, on the other hand, refers to
law that has been created by parliament in the form
of legislation.

Although there has been a significant increase in

statute law in the 20th and 21st centuries, the courts
still have an important role to play in creating and
operating law generally and in determining the
operation of legislation in particular.
 PRIVATE LAW AND PUBLIC LAW
Public law is that area of constitutional, administrative, criminal, and
international law that focuses on the organization of the
government, the relations between the state and its citizens,
the responsibilities of government officials, and the relations
between sister states. It is concerned with political matters,
including the powers, rights, capacities, and duties of various levels
of government and government officials.

Private law is that part of a legal system which is part of the jus
commune that involves relationships between individuals, such as
the law of contracts or torts, as it is called in the common law, and the
law of obligations as it is called in civilian legal systems. It is to be
distinguished from public law, which deals with relationships between
natural and artificial persons (i.e., individuals, business entities, non-
profit organizations) and the state including regulatory statutes,
penal law and other law that effects the public order.

In general terms, public law involves interrelations between the

state and the general population, whereas private law involves
interactions between private citizens.
CIVIL LAW AND CRIMINAL
LAW
Civil law is a form of private law and involves the
relationships between individual citizens. It is the legal
mechanism through which individuals can assert
claims against others and have those rights
adjudicated and enforced. The purpose of civil law is to
settle disputes between individuals and to provide
remedies; it is not concerned with punishment as such.
Criminal law, on the other hand, is an aspect of public
law and relates to conduct which the State considers
with disapproval and which it seeks to control and/or
eradicate. Criminal law involves the enforcement of
particular forms of behaviour, and the State, as the
representative of society, acts positively to ensure
compliance.

In criminal law, a prosecutor prosecutes a

defendant (or the accused). In civil law, a
claimant sues (or brings a claim against) a
defendant.
Differences between
Criminal and Civil law
 Crime categories
A crime is an illegal act which may result in
prosecution and punishment by the state if
the accused (= the person or people
charged with a crime) is / are convicted (=
found guilty in a court of law). Generally,
in order to be convicted of a crime, the
accused must be shown to have committed
an illegal (= unlawful) act
with a criminal state of mind.
Crime categories (contd)
Look at the list of crimes in the box, then look at the categories below. Decide which
category each one comes under, and write the crime in the appropriate space in
the table.
Some crimes can be listed under more than one category. One of the words /
expressions in the list is not a crime.