Vocabulary tasks

A Match the following English expressions with their Russian equivalents.

1 act of Parliament a обязательные принципы

2 operations of political system b решение большинством голосов

3 amend the constitutional document c действия политической системы

4 deal with the rights of people d обычный законодательный путь

5 majority vote e вносить поправки в текст конституции

6 one-party dictatorship f быстро развивающиеся страны

7 modify the rules g видоизменять правовые нормы

8 binding principles h постановление парламента

9 ordinary legislative way i иметь дело с правами человека

10 rapidly developing countries j однопартийная диктатура

B Complete the text with an appropriate preposition from the box.

above against among by for in of on within

There are also laws which enable citizens to take legal action 1) ______ the state – against, for example, a public authority or even against the government itself. These actions are part of constitutional law.

As knowledge of the law has increased 2) ______ the general public, so have the number and range of constitutional law cases.

A constitution is the political and ideological structure 3) ______ which a system 4) ______ laws operates. Most countries have a formal written constitution describing how laws are to be made and enforced. The French Constitution, for example, sets a seven year term of office 5)_____ the president; the US Constitution sets a four year term. In Switzerland, a referendum (national vote) must be held 6) ______ any issue for which a petition signed 7) ______ 10,000 people has been gathered; in Ireland, referenda are to be used only in the case of changes in the constitution itself. 8) ______ Germany, a change in the constitution requires a special majority vote in parliament, not the simple majority necessary for other laws. Many other countries put the constitution 9) _______ other laws by making it difficult to change.

Over to you

For discussion:

Can a person or society as a whole live without any constitution? Are there any examples of this?

Unit 6 British Constitution

Before you read

Discuss these questions.

1 Are constitutions usually invented by people or are they based upon some existing

enactments?

2 Do you know any statutes which are considered to be the sources of the British

Constitution?

3 Can you dwell upon the peculiarities of the British Constitution?

The Nature of the Constitution

In England there is no one document or fundamental body of law that can be described as a “constitution”. The absence of any such document or of any distinction between public and private law has led to the suggestion that there is no constitution in England. Certainly the English constitution has no existence apart from the ordinary law; it is indeed part of that very law. The Magna Carta, the Petition of Right, the Habeas Corpus Act, the Bill of Rights, and the Act of Settlement are the leading enactments; but they are in no sense a constitutional code; and, without a host of judicial decisions, other statutes of much less importance, and a mass of custom and convention, these statutes would be unworkable.

The sources of English constitutional law are statutes, judicial precedent, textbooks, law books, the writings of historians and political theorists, the biographies and autobiographies of statesmen, the columns of every serious newspaper, the minutiae of every type of government record and publication. This is what is meant by saying the English Constitution is “unwritten”: it is not formally enacted; its rules have to be sought out in a dozen fields, not in any one code.

Similarly, it is flexible, and here the contrast is with a rigid constitution. There are no special safeguards for constitutional rules; constitutional law can be changed, amended, or abolished just like any rule of private law; there is no field in which Parliament is forbidden to legislate; there are no fundamental or unalterable ideologies and no procedures to prescribe delay or extra processes for constitutional change.