法学专业英语教育教案之期法律英语末复习资料

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Unit One :Introduction to the American Legal System

1.What is law?Though we used the word “law” very often in our daily conversations,we use it in so many that there is no simple answer to this question.

译：何为法律？纵使我们在日常对话中经常用到“法律”一词，我们仍然无法对这个问题简要回答。

2.Law has been defined as a set of rules that govern the actions of people in a community.These rules must be followed by citizens,and violation of these rules may give rise to a cause of action in the courts.This view sees law as a set of fixed principles known to lawyers and judges, ignorance if which excuses no one,not even the less knowledge or less affluent members of society.

译：法律曾被定义为规范一个群体中人们的行为的一套规则。公民必须遵守这些规则，违反这类规则将会引起诉讼的案由。这种观点将法律视为一套被律师和法官所知悉的、固定的规则，不了解这条规则的人并不能因此被免除责任，即使他们文化水平低或经济条件差也不能例外。

3.Another view is that law is a method of establishing order by maintaining authority if a ruler over those ruled.According to this view, law begins only when a coercive apparatus comes into existence to maintain control through enforcement of social norms.The control group need not be agents of a political entity, but may be labor,business,or church organizations.And the coercion can be psychological as well as physical.

译：另一种观点认为，法律是统治者通过保持其权威，建立秩序规则，统治被统治者的一种方法。根据这种观点，只有在强制力的机构产生且其通过实施社会规范来维持控制时，法律才开始形成。控制集团不一定要是政治实体的代表，可以是工人、商人或教会组织。这种强制可以是心理的也可以是生理的。

4.Most observes, however, believe that law exist only in a formal setting that involves the legislative, judicial, and executive arms of a political body and its system.This view holds that although rules are an important part of the process, the emphasis is upon actions for the purpose of adherence to those rules. Law is thus defined as the formal means of social control that involves the use of rules that are interpreted, and are enforceable, by the courts of a political community. The hallmark of law is the obligation to act in line with norms authoritatively determined.

译：多数人认为，法律只存在于一种包含政治实体的立法、司法和行政机构 及其制度的正式的环境中。这种观点认为，尽管规则是总过程中一个重要的组成部分，重点却在于为使人们遵守这些规则而采取的行动。因此，法律被定义为一种正式的社会控制手段，这涉及了规则的使用和理解，还包含了可以由法院这个政治团体来强制实行。法律的标志是人人都必须遵守权威机构认定的行为规则。

5.Laws may be classified in many ways. They are sometimes classified as substantive law and procedural law. The rules of law that are used to resolve disputes

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are referred to substantive law. The legal procedures that determine how a lawsuit is begun, how the trial is conducted, how appeals are taken, and how a judgment is enforced are called procedural law. Substantive law defines rights, and procedural law establishes the procedures by which these rights are enforced and protected. For example, A and B have entered into a agreement, and A claims B has breached the agreement. The rules that provide for bringing B into court and for the conduct of the trial are rather mechanical and they constitute procedural law. Whether the agreement was enforceable and whether A is entitled to damages are matters of substance and would be determined on the basis of the substantive law of contracts.

译：法律分类有很多种划分方法。有时它们被划分为为实体法和程序法。用 于实际裁决纠纷的法律被称为实体法。决定诉讼何时开始、审判如何进行、如何上诉、判决如何被执行的法律程序被称为程序法。实体法界定权利，而程序法确认施行和保护这些权利的程序。举个例子，A和B达成了协议，A主张B违反约定。将B推上法庭和支持审判所依据的规则是相当机械的，这些规则就是程序法。至于上述协议是否可执行以及A是否应得到损失赔偿则是实质性的问题，将取决于实体的合同法。

6.Law is also frequently classified into public law and private law. Public law includes those bodies of law that affect the public generally. It can be further divided into constitutional law, administrative law and criminal law. Private law includes the areas of law that concern the relationships between individuals in an organized society. It covers the subjects of contracts, torts and property, each of which can be subdivided into several bodies of law .The law of torts is the primary source of litigation in America. It deals with wrongful acts against a person or his property and is based on the theory that in a civilized society, people who injure other persons or their property must compensate them for their loss.

译：法律也经常被分为公法和私法。公法通常包括影响公众的法律。公法又可进一步细分为宪法、行政法和刑法。私法包括涉及有组织的社会中个人间相互关系的法律领域。它涵盖了合同、侵权和知识产权等领域，每一部分又可以再细分为许多方面。侵权法是美国诉讼的主要依据。它处理的是侵犯个人权利的不法行为，它的理论依据是:在文明社会里,危害他人或他人财产者必须赔偿损失。

7.Classification of law according to subject matter can often be difficult because the law is indeed a seamless web, and overlapping is inevitable if we divide it according to a clear-cut definition. Assume that a person is injured by a product he has purchased. The law of sales, even though a part of the law of contracts, contains several aspects that could best be labeled a branch of the law of torts. Therefore, it is apparent that even the general classification of contract and tort is not accurate in describing the subject matter of various bodies of law.

译：根据不同的内容将法律进行分类通常很难，因为法律是一个没有缝隙的 网络，如果我们根据法律清晰明确的定义划分法律，那么相互交叉是无法避免的。设想某人被他所购买的产品伤害。销售法尽管是合同法的一个部分，它的不少内容如果将其列为侵权法的一个分支也许是最合适。所以很明显，即便是合同法和侵权法这样的大体的分类在描述各种法律的内容时也是不尽准确的。

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8.The phrase \by which law is created and developed, or the origin from which particular laws derive their authority or coercive force.

译：“法的渊源”通常是被用来描述产生和制订法律的方法和程序，或者是 特定法律的权威性和强制力的渊源。

9.Law in Western societies has developed along two lines. In the countries of continental Europe and those areas influenced by them, the governing law dates back to Roman law and is known as the civil law system. The law with which Americans are more familiar is known as the common law, which developed in English speaking countries.

译：西方社会法律的发展因循两条不同的道路。在欧洲大陆国家和受它们影 响的地区，目前适用的法律可追溯到罗马法，被称为大陆法系。美国人更为熟悉的法律被称为普通法，它主要在英语国家发展。

10.The major difference between the two systems lies in the operation of the judicial processes. Adjudication under the civil law is made by the judge following principles originating from Roman law and embodied at present under an extensive code of law in effect in that particular country. The judge must apply the appropriate section of the code to the case in court. The common law, on the other hand , develops more through the decisions of judges applying prior decisions of courts to the new facts at hand. Under the common law system, a very substantial part of law is not to be found in statutes enacted by legislatures but rather in cases. A case once decided establishes a binding precedent to a certain extent, and will be followed by the courts when similar issues arise later. Although judges tend to focus more upon statutes or administrative rules these days, the fact that they still review past cases before making a decision shows that adherence to decided cases is still kept as a tradition in American courts.

译：两个法系之间的主要区别在于司法运行的程序不同。在大陆法系统中， 由法官判案，所遵循的原则来源于罗马法，而今则体现于该国有效的内容广泛的法典中。法官必须将法典中相关的条文应用于正在审理的案件中。而普通法则是由法官将以前法庭的判决应用于当前的新情况作出判决而形成的。在普通法系统中，相当一部分法律并不存在于立法机关通过的法规条文而在于判例。案子一旦判决，就在某种程度上确立了一个有约束力的先例，法庭以后遇到类似诉讼即按该先例作出判决。即使近年来法官更趋向于运用法律和行政法规，事实上他们仍然会在作出案件判决前回顾先例，这显示遵循先例仍然是美国法庭的传统。

11.Because of the common law tradition, American law comes from four basic sources: the federal and state constitutions, statutes made by the United States congress and the legislatures of the various states, case law or judge-made law( uncodified law based on judicial decisions), and rules and decisions formulated by administrative agencies collectively known as administrative law. However, the judicial system has established a general priority among the various sources of law. Constitution prevails over statutes, and statutes prevail over common law principles

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established in court decisions. Courts will not turn to case decisions for law if a statute is directly in point.

译：由于普通法传统的原因，美国法有四个基本法律渊源：联邦和州的宪法、由美国一会和各个州的立法机关制定的成文法、判例法或法官造法（基于司法判决的不成文法）、统称为行政法的行政机构制定的规则和决策。然而，司法系统在不同法律渊源之间已经建立了一个通常的优先次序。宪法优先于成文法，成文法优先于司法判决的不成文法。法院不会在有成文法的直接规定的情况下从先例中找寻依据。

Unit Two :Duality（双轨制）in the American Legal System

1.The American legal system features a complexity resulting from American federalism. Within the federal structure, each state retains a substantial degree of autonomy. Each has its own constitution, statutes made by its own legislature, and a body of case law created by its own courts. So it can be said that instead of one uniform set of laws America has fifty one a set of laws for each of the fifty states and one for the federation.

译：美国的法律制度的复杂性归因于美国的联邦制。在联邦分权制下, 每个州保留相当程度的自治。各州都有自己的宪法、立法机关制定的成文法和大量的由州法院作出的判例法。所以可以说美国没有一套全国统一的法律，取而代之的是美国51个州各自拥有的51套州法律，还有一套联邦的。

2.A complication resulting from this duality, or multiplicity, is that choice of law questions frequently arise in multi-state transactions or occurrences if a dispute arises out of a series of activities in different states, or between citizens of different states, and the substantive rights at issue are defined differently in these states, the choice of applicable law, which is governed by different choice of law rules of different states, becomes a very complicated question.

译：双轨制或者说法律的多元化所带来的复杂情况之一是在涉及跨州交易或事件的诉讼中往往出现法律选择问题：如果引起纠纷的一系列活动在不同的州或当事人来自不同的州，而这些州关于实体性权力的定义不同，选择何种法律适用取决于不同州的不同法律选择，这将导致一个非常复杂的问题。

*这一段有长难句，我翻太烂，可自行翻译。

3.The trend toward uniform statutes has tended to reduce this complication, but conflicts of law problems still exist. So, in studying American law, students should be aware that different states may have different substantive laws and different choice of law rules regarding a particular legal situation, resulting in the possibility that the choice of forum may affect the substantive rights of the parties concerned.

译：统一法律规定的倾向更趋向于减少这种复杂情况，但法律选择的纷争依 然存在。所以，在学习美国法律是，学生应当注意，关于一个特定的法律情形，不同州可能拥有不同的实体法律和不同的法律选择，这导致选择不同的法院可能影响当事人所关心的实体权利。

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4.Choice of forum also adds to the complexity of litigation in America, because duality is also present in America's court system. Instead of one unified set of courts, America has fifty one sets, each of which operates independently of the others, and each of which is complete with its own trial and appellate courts.

译：选择法院也增加了美国诉讼的复杂性，因为美国的法院系统同样存在双 轨制。取代一个统一的法院系统，美国拥有51个法院系统，他们彼此独立运行 且拥有完整的审判和上诉法院。

5.The state courts are the courts in which disputes are ordinarily heard. Its trial courts include courts of limited jurisdiction and courts of general jurisdiction.

译：纠纷的解决通常是州法院审理的。其初审法院包括有限管辖权法院和一 般管辖权法院。

6.Most states have trial courts of limited jurisdiction. These inferior courts are authorized to hear and determine cases involving a relatively small amount of money or particular subject matters. The names and authority of courts of limited jurisdiction vary from state to state.

译：大多数州有有限管辖权的初审法院。这些低级法院被授权审理和判决小 额诉讼或特定种类的诉讼。这些有限管辖权法院的名称和权力因州而异。

7.All states have courts, usually organized along county lines, for hearing cases of all types, unlimited by subject matter or amount in controversy. Such courts are referred to as the trial courts of general jurisdiction. The court of general jurisdiction is known by different names in different states: in California it is the Superior Court1; in New York, it is the Supreme Court2; in many states it is the Circuit Court3; in other states it is known as the District Court4, the County Court5, the Court of Common Pleas6, and other names. Whatever its name this is the court which hears all cases that are not channeled elsewhere.

译：所有的州都拥有一种法院，通常根据郡县的边界划分，审理所有种类的 案件，不受案件种类和诉讼金额的限制。这类法院就是有一般管辖权的初审法院。该类法院在不同州有不同的叫法：在加州它被称作高级法院1；在纽约它被称作最高法院2；在很多州它被称为巡回法院3；在其他州它被称为州地方法院4、地方法院5或普通法院6等。不论它叫什么名字，这类法院都审理所有的案件，不会被移送到任何其他法院。（斜体为自己的蹩脚翻译）

8.Most states permit appeal of the determinations made by courts of limited jurisdiction. In some states, a litigant dissatisfied with the result of the decision by the inferior court may request that the case be retried in the court of general jurisdiction. In some states, the appeal to the court of general jurisdiction is the final appeal and in others, the decision of the court of general jurisdiction may be reviewed by further appeal.

译：大多数州的允许上诉的决定由限制管辖权法院作出。在一些州，一个当 事人不服低级法院作出的判决结果可能请求由一般管辖权法院重审。在一些州，一般管辖权法院对上诉案件的审理是终审上诉而在另一些州一般管辖权法院作