I. Read the following texts. Render them into Ukrainian.

NATIONAL FLAG OF UKRAINE. NATIONAL EMBLEM OF UKRAINE.

The combination of the blue and yellow colours reaches far back into pre-Christian times. These colours predominated on the flags of the medieval Kyivan State and were prominent during the Cossack age.

On 22 March 1918 the blue-and-yellow flag was ratified as the national flag of the independent Ukrainian National Republic, and with the unification of all Ukrainian lands in 1919 it became the only Ukrainian flag. Following the declaration of independence, the blue-and-yellow flag was adopted as the national flag of Ukraine by an Act of Parliament on 28 January 1992.

The trident is an ancient symbol of the Ukrainian people. In the 10^th century it became coat of arms of the Kyivan princes, including Volodymyr the Great and Yaroslav the Wise.

With the restoration of Ukrainian independence, the trident was adopted as the official emblem of the Ukrainian National Republic in 1918.

In 1992 the Trident once again be­came the national emblem of Ukraine.

Notes: Coat-of-arms - герб

A CONSTITUTION – THE STANDARD OF LEGITIMACY

I. Read the text. Use dictionary if necessary.

Constitution is the body of fundamental laws of a state, laying down the system of government and defining the relations of the legislature, executive, and judiciary to each other and to the citizens.

Written constitutions. Since the French Revolution (1789-1799) almost all countries (the UK is an exception) have adopted written constitutions. In some states, such as the United States, the constitution is a specific written document; in others, such as the United Kingdom, it is a collection of documents, statutes, and traditional practices that are generally accepted as governing political matters. Virtually every state claims to have a constitution, but not every government conducts itself in a consistently constitutional manner.

In most Western countries the constitution is a scheme of government that has been deliberately adopted by the people: examples are the Constitution of the United States adopted in 1787 (ratified in 1789) and still in essentials unchanged; the constitution of the Weimar Republic or that of the Federal Republic of Germany, brought into force in 1949; and the constitutions that France has had since the Revolution of 1789-1799. The constitution in these countries is the basis of public law; it is usually enacted or adopted with special formalities; special processes are devised for its amendment and sometimes safeguards are inserted to ensure that certain provisions are unalterable.

The English constitution. The constitution of the UK does not exist as a single document but as an accumulation of customs and precedents, together with laws defining certain of its aspects. Among the latter are Magna Carta (1215), the petition of right (1628), and the Habeas Corpus Act (1679), limiting the royal powers of taxation and of imprisonment; the Bill of Rights (1689) and the Act of Settlement (1701) establishing the supremacy of Parliament and the independence of the judiciary; and the Parliament Acts (1911 and 1949), limiting the powers of the Lords. The sources of English constitutional law are diffuse – statutes, juridical precedent, textbooks, lawbooks, the writings of historians and political theorists, the biographies and autobiographies of statesmen, the columns of every serious newspaper, the volumes of Hansard, 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.

II. Work in groups of 2-3. Discuss the following issues: