Active vocabulary

A losing party

to dismiss the case

a prior decision

to reverse or to uphold the district court’s decision

to claim

to remand the case

a judicial review

briefs

an oral argument

to file a dissenting opinion

a violation

to announce a decision

to clarify the law

to declare a law unconstitutional

to be inconsistent with the Constitution

an amendment

Assignment I. Topics for discussion

1. Describe the work of the US Court of Appeals

2. Characterize the US Supreme Court

3. Compare the structure and the functions of the US Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of Russia

Supplement I.

Philosophical aspects of American law

It would be unwise to talk of an “American philosophy of law”. Americans, like the people of other countries, have different and often conflicting philosophies of law. Moreover, the various legal philosophies, which coexist in America, are very closely related to other legal philosophies which have found expression in other countries. Thus, in the United States there are those who accept a so-called natural-law theory, which finds the primacy source and the primacy sanction of legal rules and decisions in reason and morality; there are those who accept a so-called positivist theory which distinguishes sharply between law and morality, and views law as the product of political authority, the “will of the State”; still other follow the historical jurisprudence, which explains law as a product of the historical development of a people’s spirit and character; and there are many who have adopted modern variations of these traditional schools of legal thought – such as sociological jurisprudence, or so-called legal realism.

Each of these legal philosophies has its advocates, and each has its period of popularity at one or another time in our history.

In the earlier period of our history, especially in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, most of American leading jurists accepted the view that there is a “moral law”, or a “higher law”, by which legislatures, courts and administrative officials are found and which is superior to statutes, precedent or custom.

In this connection it must be stressed that the Constitution itself specifically enacts, as positive law, certain broad principles of moral justice. Thus the Constitution states that no person may be deprived of life, liberty or property without “due process of law” - a phrase which means to an American what the phrase “natural law” has meant traditionally, namely, equality, consistency, impartiality, justice, fairness. The Constitution also guarantees certain broad freedoms such as freedom of speech and of religion, and certain broad rights such as the right to an impartial trial, and the right of all citizens to equal protection of the laws.

Requiring that all the laws must conform to these moral principles, the Constitution provides that American judges are not free to decide a case without regard to statute, precedent and custom. On the contrary, stability of laws and consistency of decisions are basic values of the judicial system.

Supplement II.