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1.What political system does the Russian Federation represent according to the Constitution?

2.What is special about political system of the Russian Federation?

3.What political institutions represent power in the Russian Federation? (understanding a scheme)?

4.Can you explain how the branches of power interact (взаимодействуют)?

HOW MANY WORDS DO YOU REMEMBER?

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PART II. THE EUROPEAN JUDICIAL SYSTEM AND THE LAW-MAKING PROCESS

TOPICAL VOCABULARY

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UNIT 1. THE LEGAL SYSTEM OF THE UK

Read and translate the texts. Remember as many details as you can. Render the texts.

Government responsibilities

The UK judiciary is entirely independent of the Government and is not subject to ministerial direction or control. Responsibility for the administration of justice rests with the Lord Chancellor, the House Secretary and the secretaries of State for Scotland and Northern Ireland. Also concerned is Prime Minister, who recommends the highest judicial appointments to the Crown.

England and Wales

The most common type of law court in England and Wales is the magistrates’ court. There are 700 magistrates’ courts and about 30 000 magistrates. More serious criminal cases then go to the Crown Court, which has 90 branches in different towns and cities. Civil cases (for example, divorce or bankruptcy cases) are dealt with County courts.

Appeals are heard by higher courts. Appeals from magistrates’ courts are heard in the Crown Court, unless they are appeals on points of law. The highest court of appeal in England and Wales is the House of Lords. (Scotland has its own High Court in Edinburgh, which hears all appeals from Scottish courts). Certain cases may be referred to the European Court of Justice in Luxemburg. In addition, individuals have made the British Government change its practices in a number of areas as a result of petition to the European Court of Human Rights.

The legal system also includes juvenile courts (which deal with offenders under seventeen) and coroners’ courts (which investigate violent, sudden or unnatural deaths). There are administrative tribunals which make quick, cheap and fair decisions with less formality. Tribunals deal with professional standards, disputes between individuals, and disputes between individuals and government departments (over taxation).

The Lord Chancellor is the head of judiciary (and sometimes sits as a judge in the House of Lords): he is concerned with court procedure and is responsible for the administration of all courts other than magistrates’ and coroners’ courts, and for a number of administrative tribunals. He appoints magistrates, and has general responsibility for the legal aid and advice schemes. He is also responsible for the administration of civil law reform.

The Home secretary is concerned with the criminal law, the police service, prisons, and the probation and after-care service; and has general supervision over magistrates’ court.

Responsibility for the treatment of offenders under 17 is shared between the Home Office and the Department of Health. The Home Secretary is also re-

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sponsible for advising the Queen on the exercise of the royal prerogative of mercy to pardon a person convicted of a crime or to remit all or part of a penalty imposed by a court.

The Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General are the Government’s principal advisers on English law, and represent the Crown in appropriate domestic and international cases.

Scotland

The Secretary of State for Scotland recommends the appointment of all judges other than the most serious ones, appoints the staff of the High Court of Judiciary and the Court of Session, and is responsible for the composition, staffing and organizing of the sheriff courts. District courts are staffed and administered by the district and island local authorities. The Secretary of State is also responsible for the criminal law of Scotland, crime prevention and the police. The secretary of state is also responsible for legal aid in Scotland.

The Lord Advocate and the Solicitor-General are the chief legal advisers to the Government on Scottish questions and the principal representatives of the Crown for the purposes of legislation in Scotland. Both are government ministers.

Northern Ireland

The administration of all courts is the responsibility of the Lord Chancellor, while the Northern Ireland Office, Under the Secretary of State, deals with the police and the penal system. The Lord Chancellor has general responsibility for the legal aid and scheme in Northern Ireland.

UNIT 2. THE EUROPEAN UNION LEGAL SYSTEM

Read and translate the texts. Remember as many details as you can. Render the texts.

The Community legal system is based on several sources of law. Community law is not universal, nor can the Community enact any legislation it pleases; its competence is limited to the powers attributed to the Community by the legal texts adopted by the member states (see Article 5 EC (the EC Treaty – Treaty Establishing the European Community)). These powers have grown considerably in strength and extent since the inception of the Community; the field of application of Community law has been widened by each successive Treaty and the Community institutions have received more powers through these Treaties. There is little doubt that through the interpretation of the Community powers by the European Court of Justice, further extension of their application has oc-

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curred. General principles of law which are recognised and applied by the member states have been used by the ECJ to underpin the Community legal system. The sources of Community law are:

Primary legislation: The Constitutive Treaties, subsidiary Conventions, acts by the member states (during summit meetings of the European Council);

Secondary legislation: regulations, directives and decisions; recommendations and opinions;

Other sources of law: international agreements, general principles of law, case law of the European Court of Justice, ‘soft law’ (memoranda, circulars, statements, resolutions).

The validity of the primary European Community legislation is not subject to review either in national courts or in the European Court of Justice. The power of the courts in relation to the treaties is limited to interpretation.

But the validity, as well as the meaning or effect, of secondary Community legislation can be challenged both in national courts and in the European Court of Justice on the basis of substantive ultra vires, infringement of the treaties, misuse of powers, or failure to observe some procedural requirement (art. 230). A national court, instead of determining the point itself, may decide to refer any question of the validity of secondary Community legislation to the European Court of Justice (art. 234).

The Treaty of Lisbon amends the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the EC Treaty. The Treaty of Lisbon itself has 7 Articles, of which Arts 1 and 2 are the most important, plus numerous Protocols and Declarations. Article 1 of the Treaty of Lisbon contains the amendments to the TEU. The amended TEU contains material concerning some of the principles that govern the European Union, as well as revised provisions concerning the CFSP and enhanced cooperation. Article 2 of the Treaty of Lisbon amends the EC Treaty, which is renamed the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union; it will be referred to hereafter as the TFEU. The European Union is henceforth to be founded on the TEU and the TFEU, and the two Treaties have the same legal value.

The European Union is to replace and succeed the EC.

An innovation introduced by the EU Constitution was the hierarchy of norms, which distinguished between different categories of legal act, and used terms such as “law”, “framework law” and the like. The European Council of June 2007, which initiated the process leading to the Treaty of Lisbon, decided that the terms “law”, and “framework law” should be dropped. The rationale given was that the Treaty of Lisbon was not to have a “constitutional character” and it was decided to retain the existing terminology of regulations, directives and decisions.

A version of the hierarchy of norms is however preserved in the Treaty of Lisbon, which distinguishes between legislative acts, non-legislative acts of general application and implementing acts.

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Thus TFEU defines a legislative act as one adopted in accord with a legislative procedure, either the ordinary legislative procedure, which is the successor to co-decision, or a special legislative procedure (art. 289).

TFEU deals with what are now termed non-legislative acts of general application, whereby power to adopt such acts is delegated to the Commission by a legislative act. Such non-legislative acts can supplement or amend certain nonessential elements of the legislative act, but the legislative act must define the objectives, content, scope and duration of the delegation of power (art. 290).

The third category in the hierarchy of norms, implementing acts, is dealt with in art. 291 TFEU. Member States must adopt all measures of national law necessary to implement legally binding EU acts. Where uniform conditions for implementing legally binding EU acts are needed, those acts shall confer implementing powers on the Commission, or, in certain cases on the Council. It is for the EP and Council to lay down in advance the rules and general principles concerning mechanisms for control by Member States of the Commission’s exercise of implementing powers.

UNIT 3. MAKING NEW LAWS IN GREAT BRITAIN:

BILLS AND ACTS

Read and translate the texts. Remember as many details as you can. Render the texts.

The functions of Parliament are: making laws; providing money for the government through taxation; examining government policy, administration and spending; debating political questions.

Every year Parliament passes about a hundred laws directly, by making Acts of Parliament. Because this can be a long process, Parliament sometimes passes a very general law and leaves a minister to fill in the details. In this way, it indirectly passes about 2.000 additional rules and regulations.

No new law can be passed unless it has completed a number of stages in the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The monarch also has to give a Bill the Royal Assent, which is now just a formality. Since 1707 no sovereign has refused a Bill. Whilst a law is still going through Parliament it is called a Bill. There are two main types of Bills – Public Bills which deal with matters of public importance and Private Bills which deal with local matters and individuals.

Public and Private Bills are passed through Parliament in much the same way. Any MP may introduce a Bill, and ask permission to bring it to the notice of the House. When permission has been obtained, the Bill is brought before the House for the first reading. The first reading of the Bill is scarcely ever objected to, as there is no debate or amendment allowed at this stage; but a date is fixed for the second reading.

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When this second reading takes place, the Member who has introduced the Bill makes his speech, explaining the proposed new law, and his reasons for bringing it forward. Other Members may support the Bill; but others may oppose it. There may be a discussion. The Speaker calls upon different Members who are eager to speak. All speeches are addressed to him, beginning

“Mr Speaker, Sir”.

When these various speeches have been made for and against the Bill, the Speaker will then ask whether the Bill is to pass the second reading, and to go on to the next stage, when it will be discussed in detail by a special committee. The House may be unanimous in favour of the Bill, or, on the other hand, some Members may shout Aye and others No. The Speaker must then call for a division. The Members leave their seats and pass into the lobbies though different doors, to show which way they are voting. Two tellers, one on each side, count the votes as the Members go through.

When the numbers have been takes, the Members return to their seats, and the Speaker reads out the results of the voting. If the Bill has a majority of votes, that means that it has passed the second reading. It will be read a third time and then go before the House of Lords and provided it is not rejected by them, it goes through the same procedure as in the Commons. After receiving the Royal Assent the Bill becomes an Act of Parliament. In order to be enforced, it must be published in Statute form, becoming a part of Statute Law. The power of the Lords to reject a Bill has been severely curtailed. A money Bill must be passed by the Lords without amendment within a month of being presented in the House. The Act of 1949 provides that any Public Bill passed by the Commons in two successive parliamentary sessions and rejected both times by the Lords, may be presented for the Royal Assent, even though it has not been passed by the Lords. The Lords, therefore, can only delay the passage of a Public Bill, they cannot reject it.

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UNIT 4. THE LAW-MAKING PROCESS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Read and translate the texts. Remember as many details as you can. Render the texts.

The adoption of legislation in the Community is governed by art. 249 EC. This may be done by the European Parliament acting jointly with the Council, the Council acting alone, and the Commission. The Treaty confers legislative power on the Commission only to a very limited extent, but the Council frequently delegates powers to the Commission in order to allow it to fulfill its executive function.

The consultation procedure was the procedure originally provided for in most of the Treaty. It is a fairly straightforward procedure which only involves the Commission and the Council with regard to decision-making. The other institutions, the European Parliament, as well as the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, simply have to be consulted. The Commission makes the proposal, after the European Parliament (and others) have been consulted, and the Council adopts.

The European Parliament’s opinions have no binding force. However, when provided in the Treaty, consultation with the EP constitutes an ‘essential procedural requirement’ (art. 230 EC) and, as the court ruled in Case 138/79 Roquette Freres SA v Council (1980), failure to comply with it constitutes ground for annulment of the acts by the ECJ.

In addition to mandatory consultations provided for by the Treaties, both the Commission and the Council normally seek the EP’s opinion on an optional basis on a wide range of measures having a determining effect on policy.

The cooperation procedure (art. 252 EC) was introduced by the Single European Act (1986) with a view to increasing the influence of the EP in the legislative process but without giving it a real power of co-decision. For example, measures relating to the implementation of vocational training policies (art. 150) require this procedure to be used. Under these provisions Parliament is given a second opportunity to consider draft legislation. If, following that second look, Parliament continues to object to the proposal, the Council may still adopt it, but it must do so within three months acting unanimously. Where Parliament proposes amendments, the proposal may be sent back to the Commission for examination. Where the Commission rejects the amendments, Council may still accept them, provided it does so unanimously. Thus Parliament may act as a brake on the Council by requiring that it act unanimously rather than by qualified majority.

By contrast, measures made under art. 44 (right of establishment) are made under the procedures set out in art. 251 (the co-decision procedure). Under this procedure, the Council must first adopt a common position, after obtaining an opinion from Parliament. Parliament may then either confirm or reject that

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position, or propose amendments to it (by absolute majority). The Council may then approve these amendments by qualified majority unless the Commission has delivered a negative opinion on Parliament’s amendments. In that case the Council must act unanimously. Thus far the procedure is similar to that under art. 252. If the Council does not approve the amended act, however, the matter must be referred to a Conciliation Committee, composed of equal members of Council and Parliament. If a joint text is approved, the Council and Parliament may together adopt it. If not, Parliament may reject the text by an absolute majority of its component members. Strict time limits are imposed at every stage of the proceedings.

The assent procedure was introduced by the Single European Act and extended by the TEU. It constitutes a veto right, and when assent is required the Council may act only after it has obtained the EP’s agreement. It applies to important matters such as admission of new members to the Community and association agreements.

In each case where the institutions have the power to enact legislation, the Treaty specifies the type of legislation to be made and which sort of procedures must be used. In addition, the Treaty will specify whether the Council must act unanimously, by qualified majority voting or by simple majority voting. A failure to abide by these procedural requirements may give rise to an action for the annulment of the measure. The various combinations arising out of the possible permutations of the different voting procedures in Council, types of Community act and degrees of involvement of Parliament make the legislative process very complex. In addition to encouraging challenges to the correct legal base or procedural requirements likely, this complexity has been criticised as making the Community legal order impenetrable to the average lay person.

There are further restrictions on the making of Community acts. The institutions can only act within the scope of the powers conferred on them. Community acts must make their legal basis within the Treaty clear. This is done in the preamble to the legislation. Although the scope of the Treaty has been expanded, the freedom of the institutions to legislate is now counterbalanced by the notion of subsidiarity.

Subsidiarity and proportionality as a limit on Community powers

Art. 5 EC embodies the principle of subsidiarity. Its three paragraphs deal with three separate matters.

Does the Community have a legal base for its actions in the Treaty?

Should the Community act or can the objective be sufficiently achieved by the member states? If not, can it be better achieved by the Community?

How much should the Community do? It should use the least onerous form of legislation, leaving as much as possible to the member states.

The principle first appeared in the Community in 1975 in a report on Economic Union by the Commission. It said that an expansion Community powers

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should only occur where the member states соuld not effectively accomplish the desired tasks. Finally, subsidiarity was formally introduced as a general principle of Community law in the Maastricht Treaty on European Union in 1992. It is referred to in the preamble, in the framework articles and, finally and most importantly, in art. 3b (now art. 5) of the EC Treaty.

The text of the subsidiarity article was not altered in Amsterdam, but a binding Protocol lays out the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality more extensively. It obliges the Commission to ‘consult widely before proposing legislation and, wherever appropriate, publish consultation documents’ and to justify the relevance of its proposals with regard to the principle of subsidiarity. The Protocol states that the subsidiarity principle does not affect the primacy of Community law nor call into question the powers conferred on the Community by the Treaty, as interpreted by the ECJ, and that it shall relate to areas where the Community does not have exclusive competence.

Therefore, to determine whether subsidiarity applies, we must distinguish between areas where the Community has exclusive competence and areas where it does not. Unfortunately, this is not clear: there are no provisions in the Treaty which identify the exclusive (or non-exclusive) powers of the Community. The Commission has argued that the Community has exclusive competence in areas relating to the creation of the internal market, for example, in free movement of goods, persons and services; in the Common Commercial Policy; and in relation to the Common Agricultural Policy.

The Treaty of Lisbon states that “under the principle of proportionality, the content and form of Union action shall not exceed what is necessary to achieve the objectives of the Treaties. The institutions of the Union shall apply the principle of proportionality as laid down in the Protocol on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality”.

The Protocol on the Application of the Principles of Subsidiarity and Proportionality imposes an obligation to consult widely before proposing legislative acts. The Commission must provide a detailed statement concerning proposed legislation so that compliance with subsidiarity can be appraised. The statement must contain some assessment of the financial impact of the proposals, and there should be qualitative and, wherever possible, quantitative indicators to substantiate the conclusion that the objective can be better attained at EU level. The Commission must submit an annual report on the application of subsidiarity to the European Council, the EP, the Council, and to national parliaments.

The most important innovation in the Protocol on Subsidiarity is the enhanced role accorded to national parliaments. The Commission must send all legislative proposals to the national parliaments at the same time as to the EU institutions. A national parliament, or chamber thereof, may, within eight weeks, send the Presidents of the Commission, EP and Council a reasoned opinion as to why it considers that the proposal does not comply with subsidiarity. The EP, Council and Commission must take this opinion into account.

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