法律英语-何家弘参考资料 .doc

Lesson One: Legal System 法律制度 英属殖民地时期(the Period of the English Colonies)和美利坚合众国时期(the Period of the United States)。公诉制度(public prosecution) 美国属于普通法系(Common Law Legal System) 分散制(decentralization)为原则；以判例法(case law)为主体。 零散的无系统(fragmental nosystem)。成文法(written law)或制定法(statutory law)， 遵从前例(stare decisisPart OneThe United States is at once a very new nation and a very old nation. It is a new nation compared with many other countries, and it is new, too, in the sense that it is constantly being renewed by the addition of new elements of population and of new States. But in other senses it is old. It is the oldest of the new nations--the first one to be made out of an Old World colony. It has the oldest written constitution, the oldest continuous federal system, and the oldest practice of selfgovernment of any nation. 美国既是一个非常新的国家也是一个非常老的国家。与许多别的国家相比它是一个新的国家。同时，它还因新人口成分和新州的加入而持续更新，在此意义上，它也是新国家。但是在其它的意义上它是老国家。它是最老的“新”国家——第一个由旧大陆殖民地脱胎而出的国家。它拥有最古老的成文宪法、最古老的持续的联邦体制以及最古老的民族自治实践。 One of the most interesting features of Americas youth is that the whole of its history belongs in the period since the invention of the printing press. The whole of its history is, therefore, recorded: indeed, it is safe to say that no other major nation has so comprehensive a record of its history as has the United States, for events such as those that are lost in the legendary past of Italy or France or England are part of the printed record of the United States. And the American record is not only comprehensive; it is immense. It embraces not only the record of the colonial era and of the Nation since 1776, but of the present fifty States as well, and the intricate network of relationships between States and Nation. Thus, to take a very elementary example, the reports of the United States Supreme Court fill some 350 volumes, and the reports of some States are almost equally voluminous: the reader who wants to trace the history of law in America is confronted with over 5,000 stout volumes of l