TEXT 3 ROMAN LAW

Exercise 3.1 Study the vocabulary:

1) Roman Law	1) Римське право
2) ancient Rome	2) античний Рим
3) BC (скор. before Christ)	3) до нашої ери
4) AD (скор. лат. anno Domini)	4) нашої ери
5) to comprise	5) охоплювати
6) legal glossary	6) юридична термінологія
7) to apply the law arbitrarily	7) застосовувати право довільно
8) to prevent	8) запобігати
9) the highest degree of perfection	9) найвищий рівень досконалості
10) the legal protection	10) правовий захист
11) testament	11) заповіт
12) to be fit	12) бути придатним
13) coherent system	13) чітка система
14) indispensable	14) дуже потрібний, обов’язковий

Exercise 3.2 Read and translate the text:

Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, and the legal developments which occurred before the 7th century AD – when the Roman-Byzantine state adopted Greek as the language of government. The development of Roman law comprises more than a thousand years of jurisprudence.

Historically, "Roman law" also denotes the legal system applied in most of Western Europe, until the end of the 18th century. In Germany, Roman law practice remained longer, having been the Holy Roman Empire (963-1806); thus the great influence upon the civil law systems in Europe. Moreover, the English and North American Common law also were influenced by Roman law, notably in the Latinate legal glossary.

The first legal text is the Law of the Twelve Tables, dating from mid-5th century BC. It was proposed in it that the law should be written, in order to prevent magistrates from applying the law arbitrarily.

The first 250 years of the current era are the period during which Roman law and Roman legal science reached the highest degree of perfection. The law of this period is often referred to as classical period of Roman law. The literary and practical achievements of the jurists of this period gave Roman law its unique shape.

There have been several reasons why Roman law was favoured in the Middle Ages. It was because Roman law regulated the legal protection of property and the equality of legal subjects and their wills, and because it prescribed the possibility that the legal subjects could dispose their property through testament.

Today, Roman law is no longer applied in legal practice. However, even where the legal practice is based on a code, many rules deriving from Roman law apply: No code completely broke with the Roman tradition. Rather, the provisions of Roman law were fitted into a more coherent system and expressed in the national language. For this reason, knowledge of Roman law is indispensable to understand the legal systems of today. Thus, Roman law is often still a mandatory subject for law students in civil law jurisdictions.

As steps towards a unification of the private law in the member states of the European Union are being taken, the old Commune, which was the common basis of legal practice everywhere, but allowed for many local variants, is seen by many as a model.

Exercise 3.3 Complete the sentences and choose the best variant:

1. Roman law is the legal system of …

a) Kyiv Russ

b) ancient Rome

c) Byzantine Empire