Семестр. Nobody is allowed to ride a bicycle in a swimming pool

In Pacific Grove

In San Francisco

In Los Angeles

In Hollywood

In Baldwin Park

Nobody is allowed to ride a bicycle in a swimming pool.

It is illegal to drive more than two thousand sheep down Hollywood Boulevard at one time.

You cannot bathe two babies in the same tub at the same time.

It is prohibited for elephants to stroll down Market Street unless they are on a leash.

Persons classified as “ugly” may not walk down any street.

It is illegal to molest butterflies.

In Waterloo, Nebraska

It is illegal for a barber to eat onions between 7 am and 7 pm

In New York State

You are not allowed to shoot at a rabbit from a moving trolley car. You have to get off the car, or wait for it to come to a complete stop, and then fire away.

In Alaska

It is illegal to look at a moose from the window of an airplane or any other flying vehicle.

In Indiana

It is against the law to travel on a bus within four hours of eating garlic.

(1136 t.un.)

The English Constitution and Theory and Practice Diversity

To understand English constitutional law it is necessary to study numerous documents, including constitutional treaties like the Bill of Rights, various statutes and judicial decisions and others. But the whole of the Constitution of Britain will not be found in any of these documents. The English constitution, though partly written, is yet to be regarded as “unwritten” from the standpoint of constitutional lawyers, *as it is not codified as a whole in any particular document or documents. The English Constitution is considered to be flexible because Parliament *can “make or unmake” any law by the same procedure and with the same ease.

The Constitution is not the source of the law, but the law gives birth to the Constitution.

Though the King (Queen) is the nominal Sovereign, any particular Parliament during the period of its existence is legally supreme.

In England *the rights of the subject aremostly deduced from actual decisions in which remedies have been afforded for their invasion. Thus it is sometimes said that under the English Constitution *the remedy precedes the right.

In administering justice the Judges enjoy little arbitrary power. The law, which they administer, is defined by statutes and other documents *having statutory validity and by judicial precedents.

Certain important Conventions control the entire working of the Constitution. These Conventions relate to the duties of the King as a person, the duties of the Ministers of the Crown and so on.

Theory and practice concerning English constitutional law are divergent, as it is seen from the following illustrations:

1. In theory the Sovereign is to be an active party to the making of laws, but in practice he has a shadowy veto.

2. In theory every Lord of Parliament is a Judge of the House of Lords, entitled to take part in appeals from the lower Courts; in practice *he always absents himself unless qualified by statute to sit there as one of the quorum.

3. In theory certain persons (e.g. Lord Mayor) are invested with judicial powers at trials in the Central Criminal Court, but in practice they don't take part in judicial work there.

4. In theory certain public departments are supposed to be controlled by boards consisting of various high officials (e.g. the Board of Trade), but the real head is a single Minister of the Crown (e.g. the President of the Board of Trade).

5. Finally, Legislature and Executive are joined together by a connecting chain — the Cabinet.

(2061 t.un.)

NOTES:

*as it is not codified — так как она не кодифицирована

*can «make or unmake» any law — может составить или аннулировать любой закон

*the rights of the subject are deduced from actual decisions — права подданных складываются на основании фактических судебных решений

*the remedy precedes the right — средство судебной защиты предшествует закону

*having statutory validity — имеющие силу закона

*he always absents himself unless qualified by statute to sit there as one of the quorum — он всегда уклоняется, кроме тех случаев, когда закон уполномочивает его заседать для обеспечения кворума

The US Constitution

The US Constitution is the framework of the US government. It establishes the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. It is also the supreme law of the land, which all public officials are bound by oath to enforce. Moreover, the Constitution guarantees each American certain basic rights.

A «constitution» in American political language means the set of rules, laws, regulations and customs which together provide the political norms or standards regulating the work of the government. The document known as the Constitution of the United States, though a basic document, is only a part of the body of rules and customs which form the whole of the American Constitution. Supreme Court decisions, interpreting parts of the US Constitution, laws, regulations, customs are part of the basic law (the so-called *live constitution). Most historians regard the US Constitution as an essentially conservative document.

One remarkable feature of the US Constitution is its endurance. It is the oldest written national constitution in use in the world. Another remarkable feature of the Constitution is its ability to adapt itself to changing conditions.

The founding fathers knew that the Constitution might have to be changed. So they provided two methods of proposing amendments: by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress or by a national convention called by Congress at the request of the legislatures in two-thirds of the states. Once proposed, an amendment does not take effect unless it is ratified either by the legislatures in three-fourths of the states or by special ratifying conventions in three-fourths of the states.

The US Constitution consists of the Preamble, seven articles and twenty six amendments, the first ten of them called collectively the Bill of Rights and adopted under the popular pressure in 1791. When the Constitution was first proposed in 1787, there was widespread dissatisfaction because it didn’t contain guarantees of certain basic freedoms and individual rights. The Constitution consolidated those gains of the revolution that were advantageous for the capitalist class. Significantly, nothing was said about the elementary bourgeois-democratic freedoms. In December, 1791, the Congress adopted ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights, which contains most of the basic rights. The Bill also enumerated *what the government controlled by the oligarchy was not going to be allowed to do. It was, of course, an important democratic gain for the people at that time. But nowadays some of these ten amendments are relatively unimportant.

The First Amendment protects the freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. The Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms. The Third Amendment protects against quartering of soldiers in private homes, and the Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.

The Fifth Amendment provides a right to due process of law and gives rights to accused people, including protection against self-incrimination. The sixth Amendment provides the rights to a lawyer, an impartial jury, and a speedy trial in criminal cases.

The Seventh Amendment provides for jury trials in civil cases.

The Eighth Amendment bars cruel and unusual punishment and excessive bail or fines. The Ninth Amendment declares that the rights spelled out in the Constitution are not all the rights that people have. Finally, the Tenth Amendment reserves to the states and the people any powers not belonging to the federal government.

The Bill of Rights was designed to protect Americans against the power of the federal government. Nothing in the Constitution specifically requires state governments to abide by the Bill of Rights. But in interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment, passed after the Civil War, the Supreme Court has extended most Bill of Rights protections to the states.

In addition to the Bill of Rights, later amendments provide other important rights. The Thirteenth Amendment forbids slavery and outlaws involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime. The Fourteenth Amendment requires equal protection of the laws for all citizens. It also provides that no state can deprive any citizen of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

Several amendments protect and broaden the right to vote. The Fifteenth Amendment forbids denying the right to vote based on race or colour. The Nineteenth Amendment gives women the right to vote. The Twenty-fourth Amendment gives citizens of Washington D.C. the right to vote in presidential elections, and the Twenty-sixth Amendments gives all people 18 years of age or older the right to vote.

(3950 t.un.)

NOTES:

*«live constitution» — «живая конституция»

*what the government controlled by the oligarchy was not going to be allowed to do.... что правительству, которое контролировалось олигархией, не разрешалось делать.

Дата добавления: 2015-01-03