UNIT 7 A

CIVIL JUSTICE

Section I

 

Exercise 1

Pronunciation Practice.

Practise saying the words.

compensation, contract, crime, damages, family law, intellectual property, plaintiff, police, private, individual, prosecution, the accused, the defendant, theft, to bring a case, to bring an action, to fine, to charge someone with something.

 

Exercise 2

Classify the following terms into the appropriate column below. Some terms can appear in both columns.

Model:

criminal	civil
prosecution	intellectual property

 

Exercise 3

Match the words and word combinations with their Russian equivalents.

1. plaintiff	a. вмешиваться
2. legal principles	b. главный свидетель
3. to have free rein	c. ответчик
4. to determine	d. состязательные
5. adversarial	e. истец
6. defendant	f. доказательство в пользу защиты
7. to intervene	g. правовые принципы
8. key witness	h. описать суть дела вкратце
9. defence evidence	i. иметь свободу действий
10. counterpart	j. процессуальный противник

 

Text

Pre-reading task: Read the text and say whether the statements below are true or false:

1. The plaintiff can not call witnesses.

2. The judge controls all the proceedings.

3. The defendant presents the evidence after the plaintiff.

Civil procedure.

The case starts normally by the plaintiff outlining the case. And the plaintiff then calls the evidence he wants. When the plaintiff has presented all his evidence, the defendant or his lawyer speaks and then calls all the defence evidence. There are then speeches by the lawyers when they both try to persuade the judge as to what he should do. They may refer him to legal rules and legal principles, and the judge then gives his decision.

As with other aspects of procedure, it is for the parties to present the case. The judge doesn’t intervene to any great extent. He may ask for clarification, but the judge’s role, essentially, is to listen to the evidence which the parties choose to put in front of him. Unlike many civil jurisdictions, the judge is not in control of the proceedings. The judge is not taking an active part in what he has done. He is listening to what the parties choose to put in front of him; and after he has heard the evidence, the judge will then give his judgment and make the order on the basis of what he has determined.

The English civil trial, like its criminal counterpart, is conducted on adversarial lines. There are two contestants, each has free rein through their lawyers to run the case. The judge is the sole arbiter both of fact and law.

 

Exercise 4