Read and translate the text

Laws generally reflect and promote a society’s values. Our legal system is influenced by our society’s traditional ideas of right and wrong. For example, the moral belief that killing another person is wrong. Most people would condemn murder regardless of what the law said. However, not everything that is immoral is also illegal. For example, lying to a friend may be immoral but is seldom illegal.

We expect our legal system to achieve many goals. These include (1) protecting basic human rights, (2) promoting fairness, (3) helping resolve conflicts, (4) promoting order and stability, (5) protecting the environment, (6) representing the will of the majority, and (7) pro­tecting the rights of minorities.

Many of society’s most difficult problems involve conflicts among these goals. For example, in trying to make up for past discrimina­tion, some laws give preference to minorities over whites or to women over men. Laws must balance rights with responsibilities, the will of the majority with the rights of the minority, the need for order with the need for basic freedom. Reasonable people sometimes disagree over how the law can protect the rights of some without violating the rights of others.

Laws can be based on moral, economic, political, or social values. As values change, so can laws. Moral values deal with fundamental questions of right and wrong. For example, laws against killing pro­mote society’s primary moral value–the protection of life. However, as already noted, some things that are considered immoral may not violate the law. In limited circumstances, such as in self–defense or during a time of war, even an intentional killing may be legal.

Economic values deal with the accumulation, preservation, use, and distribution of wealth. Many laws promote economic values by encouraging certain economic decisions and discouraging others. The law encourages home ownership by giving tax benefits to people who borrow money to pay for a home, for example. Laws against shoplift­ing protect property and discourage stealing by providing a criminal penalty.

Political values reflect the relationship between government and individuals. Laws making it easier to vote promote citizen participa­tion in the political process, a basic American political value.

Social values concern issues that are important to society. For ex­ample, it is an American social value that all students are provided with free public education through high school. Consequently, all states have laws providing such education. Like other values, social values can change. In the past, for example, society believed that school sports were not as important for girls as for boys. This value has changed. Today, laws require schools to provide females with sports opportunities similar to those offered to males.

Many laws combine moral, economic, political, and social values. For example, laws against theft deal with the moral issue of stealing, the economic issue of protection of property, the political issue of how government punishes those who violate criminal statutes, and the social issue of respecting the property of others. What values are placed in conflict by laws protecting the environment?

Find the equivalents of the following words
and expressions in the text.

Отражать и обеспечивать ценности общества, осуждать убийство, незаконный, защищать права человека, разрешить конфликт, обеспечить порядок и стабильность, защищать окружающую среду, большинство/меньшинство, давать предпочтение, сбалансировать права и обязанности, нарушать права, защита жизни, при определенных обстоятельствах, самооборона, льготы по налогообложению, участие, бесплатное государственное образование.

Answer the questions:

1. What do laws reflect and promote?

2. What influences the legal system? How?

3. Think of your own examples of something that is immoral, but not illegal. Now try to find examples of something illegal but not immoral in our society.

4. What goals do we expect the legal system to achieve?

5. What can laws change when values do?

6. What do economic values deal with?

7. How can laws promote economic values?

8. How does the law encourage people to buy homes?

9. What is the difference between political and social values?

10. Make a short summary of the text. Do you agree with all the ideas given there?

Match the words on the left with the correct
definition on the right:

Human rights	a person who rents property.
Majority	impose a penalty on (an offender) of for (an offence).
Self–defense	the number greater than half of any total.
Shoplifting	the right to defend oneself with whatever force is reasonably necessary against an actual or reasonably perceived threat of personal harm.
Punish	stealing.
Tenant	basic privileges a person has as a human being.
Theft	sums of money paid by citizens to the government for public purposes
Taxes	a form of larceny in which items are taken from a store without payment or the intention to pay.

Read and translate the dialogue:

Narrator: The solicitor describes a violent crime he has had to defend.

Solicitor: I can think of man who used to live, in a caravan, and his marriage broke up, and shortly after the break–up of marriage he had serious mental illness…

Interviewer: I see…

Solicitor: And he began drinking and he seemed to be unable to keep any job for very long and one particular night he committed a crime, fair degree of seriousness he went into a bus station. 1)For no apparent reason he hit an elderly man, on the face, as he entered the bus station. 2)Two children then came into his notice and he chased these two children on to a bus. He beat two children. 3)When another elderly man who was also sitting on the bus, which was waiting to depart…

Interviewer: Did he try to interfere?

Solicitor: Yes, he tried to prevent him from beating the children, he beat the elderly man and then, departing from the bus station, 4)he assaulted another woman on his way out.

Interviewer: I see…

Solicitor: No apparent reason at all we had extensive medical and psychiatric reports, a social report by the probation service, because this man had been in trouble before. And when it really boiled down to it, he was just anti–social.

Answer the questions:

1. After what event in his life did the man become a criminal?

2. Why couldn’t the man keep any job for very long?

3. How serious was the crime that this man committed?

4. Where did the crime occur?

5. Where was the elderly man sitting when the criminal beat him? Why did the criminal beat him?

6. What information did the solicitor obtain about his defendant (before starting to work on the case)?