Law
1.What’s the relationship between civilization and law?
The fairness of a nation’s laws and the extent to which the legal system justly administers the laws is a measure of the enlightenment, humanity, and degree of civilization of its people. 2.What’s law?
Law consists of the whole body of rules applied and enforced under the authority of established government in determining what conduct is proper and should be permitted and that which should be denied or penalized. 3.Can you list the roles of law in society?
Without law, there would be anarchy. Law is the means through which society is able to exist by providing protection for the individual; by establishing and maintaining order, health, and safety; by providing a peaceful means of dispute resolution; by providing stability and flexibility in economic relations between people; and by prohibiting conduct destructive to society. 4. How can law be best understood?
Law is best understood by viewing the legal system as a process——a means of pulling together society’s needs and goals and translating them into guides for fairness and reasonableness in conduct.
5. What are the events that promote the development of the English legal system? Norman Conquest. William replaced the local and highly varied systems of law with a common system of law.
6. Why did the people in England petition to the King and what would be the result?
Because of the extremely rigid, frequently overly technical procedural requirements of the common-law system, people were sometimes unable to obtain fair relief in the courts. In time, some persons who felt that the form of relief was inadequate petitioned to the King directly.
This practice gave rise to a second court system, called the Court of Chancery. 7. What was the situation of equity courts in North America?
American court systems in the nineteenth century resulted in simplification of judicial procedures and elimination of equity courts as separate courts in most states.
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8.Was the statutes developed fast in North America? Why?
9. What are the disadvantages of statues and the advantages of the common law rules?
10. Who has the power to make the ordinances? The legislative body of a municipal corporation
Legal System
1. What is the relationship between the civil law system and Roman Law? The civil law is based on Roman Law.
2. Who is the Justinian and what is his contribution?
Byzantium Emperor. Compiling codes after the enthronement
3. Which is the primary source of law in Europe, Roman Law or local laws? Local customs
4. Why was the concept of codification developed in the 17th and 18th centuries? As an expression of both Natural Law and the ideas of the Enlightenment. 5. What did the opponents of codification think about codification of law? Its opponents claimed that codification would result into the ossification of law.
6. What is the main feature of common law?
Its inclusion of extensive non-statutory law reflecting precedent derived from centuries of judgments by working jurists.
7. What is the difference between statutes and regulations?
Statues are enacted by a legislature, while regulations are promulgated by executive branch agencies pursuant to a delegation of rule-making authority from a legislature.
8. Where should people go if they wanted to apply for injunctions before the 20th century? Why?
Courts of equity. Only courts of equity have the authority to do it.
9. What is the difference between the selections of judges in civil law countries and that in common law countries?
Civil law judges are usually trained and promoted separately from advocates, whereas common law judges are usually selected from accomplished and reputable advocates.
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10. What are the differences in the criminal procedures of the two major legal systems?
In general, the judge in a civil law system plays a more active role in determining the facts of the case. Most civil law countries investigate major crimes using a so-called inquisitorial system. Also, civil law systems rely much more on written argument than oral argument.
Court System
1. What is the main characteristic of the court system of the United States? Courts are operated in both state and federal governments. 2. Are there any uniform rules for creating state courts? No. but it has a general pattern.
3. What are the functions of the inferior courts at the bottom of the state judicial hierarchy?
Trying minor civil cases involving small sums of money, and minor criminal cases involving light penalties and conducing preliminary hearings in the more serious criminal cases.
4. Do all states have the same terminology for courts and judges? Please give examples.
No. For examples, a man who sits on the highest court of New Jersey is called a justice of the supreme court of that state, while a man who holds an equivalent position in New York is called a judge of the court of appeals. 5. What are the duties of the judges who sit on appellate courts?
They do no trial work, being occupied exclusively in hearing appeals. They review the proceedings of trial courts upon the basis of written records. They hear oral arguments and read written arguments, called briefs, in an effort to discover whether errors were committed in the trial court of such a nature as to require reversal of the judgment or a new trial.
6. How many tiers of courts are there in the federal court system in the U.S.? What are they?
There are three levels of courts: trial, intermediate appellate and top appellate. 7. Does each state have a federal trial court? What decides the number of the
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federal trial court in each state?
Each state has at least one United States district court. The population of the district
8. What types of cases will be tried by federal courts?
Prosecutions for federal crimes civil claims based upon federal law civil claims between citizens of civil actions.
9. Which authority has the power to create federal circuit courts? Congress
10. Does the Supreme Court of the U.S. review all the cases appealed? Dose the Supreme Court of the U.S. have the power to review all the decisions made by the state highest courts? No. Yes.
Constitution
1. What are usually established in a constitution?
A constitution establishes the rules and principles by which an organization, or political entity, is governed. In the case of countries, this term refers specifically to a national constitution, which defines the fundamental political principles and establishes the power and duties of each government.
2. What are the examples that show the limitation imposed by the constitution to the organizations in the United States?
An example from the constitutional law of nation-states would be a provincial government in a federal state trying to legislate in an area exclusively enumerated to the federal government in the constitution. 3. What are the relationships regulated by the U.S. Constitution?
The relationship among institutions of the state. In a basic sense the relationship among the executive, legislative and the judiciary, but also the relationship of institutions within those branches. 4. How do you describe an uncodified constitution?
An uncodified constitution is one that is not contained in a single document, consisting of several different sources, which may be written or unwritten. 5. Why is an unwritten constitution not an accurate synonym for uncodified
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constitution?
Because all modern democratic constitutions consist of some written sources, 6. What do the codified and uncodified constitutions respectively result from? Codified constitutions are usually the product of dramatic political change, such as revolution. Uncodified constitutions are the product of an “evolution” of laws and conventions over centuries.
7. Is it easy to amend a constitution? Why or why not?
No. an extraordinary procedure is required for constitutional amendments involve some procedures that makes obtaining a constitutional amendment more difficult than passing a simple law.
8. What happens if there are conflicts between the constitution and a statute in a country using codified constitution?
All or part of the statue can be declared ultra vires by a court and struck down as unconstitutional.
9. What are the sources of uncodified constitution of Britain?
Written sources: e.g. constitutional statues enacted by the Parliament and also unwritten sources: constitutional conventions, observation of precedents, royal prerogatives, customs and traditions.
10. Are there any differences between the constitutional law and statutory law in states using uncodified constitutions?
No. Both can be altered or repealed by a simple majority in Parliament.
Criminal Law
1. Who do ordinary people think of crimes?
People think of crimes as acts that threaten public safety, security or morality. Crime can be defined as anti-social conduct that is sufficiently serious to require state intervention and punishment. 2. What is the accurate definition of crime?
A crime is any act or omission that is contrary to the criminal law. 3. What are the elements that may establish a crime? Criminal liability, guilty mind,
4. What is the standard of proof for the prosecution to prove that a person is
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