LANGUAGE PRACTICE AND COMPREHENSION CHECK. TASK II Use the verbs in brackets in the correct form in the following passage about Civil Service. TASK V Express your opinion about the following QUOTATION:

 

TASK I Explain the usage of the following passive verb-forms; translate the sentences:

1. From the 1870s until the 1970s the constitution was dominated by a communitarian ideology.

2. The powers of the House of Lords representing the old balanced constitution were diminished and executive discretionary power increased.

3. Governmental functions which had previously been exercised by local bodies were increasingly concentrated in central departments under the control of ministers answerable to Parliament.

4. The eighteenth-century statute book was dominated by laws protecting property policed by the courts.

5. Nineteenth century public health and safety legislation was followed, in the early twentieth century, by substantial housing and urban development legislation.

6. Immediately after the Second World War a wide-ranging welfare system was introduced.

7. The dominant economic belief was that the economy should be driven by the state.

8. Subordinate legislation and non-statutory rules were made by the executive on a large scale with limited parliamentary scrutiny.

9. Thousands of administrative tribunals staffed by government appointees were created to deal with the disputes generated by this expansion of state activity.

10. The traditional ideas of the rule of law as embodied in the common law and of accountability to Parliament were not seriously challenged even though the executive seemed to have outgrown both these constraints.

11. From the 1960s various “Ombudsmen” were set up to investigate complaints by citizen against government but without enforceable powers.

12. However since the 1960s the courts have strengthened their powers of control over the executive so much that worries have been expressed that they are interfering too much in politics.

 

TASK II Use the verbs in brackets in the correct form in the following passage about Civil Service:

1) British civil servants are servants of the Crown, which in practice (mean) the government. 2) Responsibility for the Civil Service (divide) between the Cabinet Office and the Treasury. The Prime Minister is Minister for the Civil Service.

3) Some civil servants (work) in government departments. 4) They (expect) to work with a government formed by any political party and to remain fair and impartial, whatever their personal opinions. 5) A change of government, or the appointment of a new minister in charge of a department, (not involve) a change of its civil servants. This is very useful to ministers who are new to an area of responsibility and have little time to learn about it. 6) The most senior civil servant in a department (call) the Permanent Secretary.

7) Ministers (not allow) to ask civil servants to do work that (intend) to promote a political party. 8) In the past ministers (rely) almost entirely on the advice of their civil servants when making decisions. 9) The power that senior civil servants had over politicians humorously (show) in the television series “Yes, Minister”. 10) More recently, party politics and pressure from Members of Parliament and commercial organizations may (have) greater influence on decision-making.

11) Most civil servants directly (not involve) in government. 12) In 1999 there (be) about 500 000 civil servants, a quarter of whom (employ) in the Ministry of Defence.

 

TASK III Fill in the following table to describe the main trends in the law-making policy in XVIII-XX centuries.

 

Century	Legislation passed

 

TASK IV Paraphrase the following sentences from the text:

1. Impelled by the demands of a larger electorate, the executive branch of government began to increase in size and range of powers.

2. The constitution made only marginal responses to these fundamental changes.

3. The Franks Committee (1958) recommended marginal reforms which buttressed the powers of the courts and supplemented parliamentary scrutiny of the executive.

4. Recognising the inevitability of executive discretion and reluctant to appear to be challenging the majority, the courts began to defer to political decisions.

5. In the inter-war period, opposite fears were expressed, some believing that the executive had taken over, others worried that an individualistically minded judiciary would frustrate popular programmes.

 

TASK V Express your opinion about the following QUOTATION:

For forms of government let fools contest;

Whate’er is best administer’d is best. (Alexander Pope, Essay on Man)

TEXT 4 “HOLLOWED-OUT GOVERNMENT”

 

The election of the Conservative government in 1979 led to a return to individualistic ideology perhaps generated by the growing awareness that the welfare state cost more than the UK's declining economy could support. Most of the nationalised industries and also water supply and sewage services were privatized. The central government increased its powers of control over local authorities to prevent them from retaining the communitarian orthodoxy. The central government attempted to confine itself to the roles of coordinator and regulator by devolving the delivery of services to a range of miscellaneous bodies both public and private and within its own apparatus set up quasi-autonomous agencies. It has been argued that although central government retains formal control, for example through powers to make appointments, to lay down policy guidelines and to regulate these dispersed bodies, it has neither the resources nor the will to co-ordinate its increasingly dispersed progeny.

This is an aspect of a wider development which raises doubts about the role of the state and about representative democracy. The traditional state has been attacked both from without and within. The “global economy” is a fashionable idea. It will be recalled that the origins of the state were military as a method of defending a community against foreign aggression. Until the Second World War the international community was regarded as a Hobbesian state of nature where the rule of law operated within state boundaries, the state being the guarantor of welfare, the stage-manager of the economy and the protagonist in the international arena. However the Second World War persuaded the international community to develop common principles regulating the economy and also concerning “crimes against humanity” such as genocide and torture, a process that has steadily developed through a series of treaties some of which, for example the European Convention on Human Rights and the Torture Convention (1984), have been incorporated into UK law.

Technology has speeded up communications to such an extent that states have become economically interdependent, allegedly to a greater extent than before, and large international firms are wealthier than many states. Governments have lost levers of power such as control over flows of money and other information. These economic developments are reflected by the growth of international bodies such as the World Trade Organisation and the EU, albeit the latter might be regarded as the last gasp of old-fashioned statism with its claim to a “European” identity. The balance of power that concentrated military efforts on perceived threats from overseas was destroyed in the 1980s by the collapse of the Soviet Union. This released many local pressures within the old state boundaries based on ethnic, religious and racial conflicts and led to an increased concern for human rights both of individuals and minority groups to which state boundaries are largely irrelevant.

These developments do not make the state redundant. Indeed sentiments about globalisation and the obsolescence of the nation state, similar to those expressed today, were prevalent in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries until the dream was interrupted by the First World War. Territorial units of government may be an essential requirement of the human species. The state remains vital as a guarantor of order, a major contributor to economic well-being and a last resort for the vulnerable. It is unlikely that the more radical predictions that the state's functions will be entirely superseded by international bodies, local communities and private companies, will be realised in the foreseeable future.

TASK I Compare the following definitions of state and determine in which meaning the word is used in the text:

 

State – A sovereign and independent entity capable of entering into relations with other states and enjoying international legal personality. To qualify as a state, the entity must have: (1) a permanent population; (2) a defined territory over which it exercises authority; (3) an effective government.                          Oxford Dictionary of LAW

 

 

State – (a) Independent country; semi-independent section of a federal country (such as the USA); (b) government of a country.                P.H. Collin Dictionary of LAW

 

 

TASK II Read the following and analyse the given approaches to state:

 

Broadly speaking the state means the supreme government within a community, but the term is also used to describe an independent country within the international community, the term “state” derives from “status” or “estate” and originally meant rank or position. The modern nation state, based on a concept developed in ancient Rome, emerged throughout Europe in the sixteenth century for military purposes following the collapse of the unifying authority of the Catholic Church. The seventeenth century civil war between the Crown and Parliament arose out of the Stuart kings” radical claim that the monarch embodied the state. The victory of Parliament in 1688 under the banner of the traditional constitution helps to explain why, during an era of great political change, Britain did nit follow the model of other European countries, most of which were absolute monarchies until the nineteenth century.

The state can be regarded as merely a body of people issuing orders, its function being to provide services for the public. What is special about the state is the Hobbesian notion that the state must be accepted by the community as having a monopoly of physical force either directly or indirectly, as when it permits the use of force by others in selfdefence.

The terms “state” and “nation” overlap. The state is a legal and political concept. A nation is a cultural, political and historical idea signifying a homogenous geographical community represented possibly but not necessarily by a common language, religious or political tradition.

In English law the terms “Queen”, “Crown” and “State” are used fairly indiscriminately. For example references are made to secretaries and ministers of state but also to ministers of the Crown. Thus there are state schools, state papers and state secrets on the one hand and National Insurance and the National Health Service on the other. The courts are the Queen’s courts, law are made by the Queen in Parliament but civil servants are servants of the Crown. Central government property is Crown property unless it is owned by an incorporated government department such as the Ministry of Defence. There are H.M. prisons, H.M. Post Office, H.M.Ships but the Crown Prosecution Service.

In “statist” constitutions such as those of France and Germany, the various departments of government, and indeed the law itself, emanate from a single monolithic state created by law and whose powers are defined and limited by the law (rechtstaat ). All public officials are servants of the state. In statist theory a constitution arises from the act of a “constituent power” which might for example be a revolution or a referendum of people. The constituent power creates the constitution which in turn creates the state and authorizes the enactment of ordinary laws in a logical self-contained hierarchy.

By contrast, English law does not recognize the state as a legal entity in its own right, but regards government as comprising a number of different legal entities, Parliament, the Crown, local authorities, the police etc. each of which is linked to the others by pragmatic rules and practices. The common law is said to derive from community values rather than the will of the state, although today, with the law dominated by the legal profession with its network of links with government, this may be unreal.

The term “state” is sometimes used in UK legislation where its meaning depends on the particular context. Sometimes state means the executive arm of government, sometimes the government as a whole, and sometimes the “sovereign power”.

Lord Devlin described the state as “the organs of government of a national community”. Lord Reid on the other hand thought that “the organised community” was as close to a definition as one can get. There is a crucial ambiguity here as to whether “the interests of the state” are taken to be the interests of the government as such or include the broader interests of the people, usually expressed by the term “public interest”.

TASK III a) Look up the usage of “government” in the following word combinations:

 

Adjectives +government: central, federal, local, national, regional, Labour, Conservative, French Western, etc, left-wing, right-wing, coalition, minority, interim, successive, transitional, democratic, representative, republican, supreme, firm, good, strong, weak.

Verb + government: elect, form, install, swear in, head, run, bring down, destabilize, oust overthrow, topple.

Government + verb: come to power, take office, fall, resign, announce sth, introduce sth, launch sth.

Government + noun: agency, body, department, enterprise, institution, office, service, funds, loan, money, paper, aid, assistance, approval, backing, funding, grant, subsidy, support, contract, credit, expenditure, spending, cuts, intervention, involvement, employee, minister, official, representative, spokesman, sources, crisis, figures, statistics, post, reshuffle, activities, decisions, functions, bills, legislation, measures, plans, policy, programme, proposals, report, propaganda.

PHRASES: a branch of government; a change of government; the government of the day; a form of government; system of government; the sitting government; the composition of the government.

 

2) the usage of “state” in the following word combinations:

Adjective + state: independent, nation, sovereign, foreign, democratic, one-party, welfare, socialist, totalitarian, member, powerful, strong, weak, neighbouring etc.

State + noun: enterprise, monopoly, control, ownership, property, sector, system education, school, aid, funding, funds, subsidy, support, benefit, pension, intervention, spending, employee, secretary, interests, secret, security, boundaries, debt, planning, succession, visit, etc.

PHRASES: affairs/matters of state; head of state, a secretary of state, crimes against the state; etc.

b) Use “state” or “government” in the following sentences:

1. A new labour ... came to power in the UK in 1997.

2. The president dissolved the assembly and swore in an interim ....

3. Since then ... intervention in the spheres of health, employment, education and social security has become far-reaching.

4. Successive ... assumed additional responsibilities in relation to economic planning, transport facilities, fuel and power supplies, housing, agriculture, protection of the environment, and so on.

5. Sovereignty is sometimes used to mean the highest legal authority, for example, the head of ....

6. Sovereignty also means the independence of a ... in international law.

7. The doctrine of the separation of power means that ... power should be divided up and each branch of government checked so that no one body can dominate the others.

8. The Torture Convention requires a ... either to prosecute or extradite an alleged offender.

9. Under the rule of law even the most despotic and self-interested ... is compelled to behave justly, in the sense that it must make rules and generally keep to them.

10. The basic legal relationship between the ... and the individual is one of Crown and subject, involving the concept of allegiance.

11. A passport issued by the Crown in its discretion requests other ...s to admit the holder.

12. The opposition has a constitutional duty criticise the ...but by definition the opposition is a minority and may be in disarray for several years after an election defeat.

TASK IV Name the issues raised in the article

“ Quangos ”

Many of the day-to-day services to the public that used to be administered by bodies on which representatives of the public served have been hived off to independent agencies on the ground that they would become more efficient when exposed to the disciplines of the market. The managing bodies are staffed by appointees rather than representatives.

The term quango (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization) is conveniently used to describe non-elected public bodies that operate outside the civil service and that are funded by the taxpayer.

They include NHS trusts, grant-maintained schools, further education colleges, urban development corporations, training and enterprise councils, and a wide variety of other bodies.

Government prefers to use the term non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs), which includes only public bodies in the formal sense. It does not cover bodies that in legal terms are private enterprises, even if they are spending public money. Government divides these bodies into executive NDPBs and advisory NDPBs. Another term used by government is “appointed Executive bodies”.

As a result of this difference in definition, estimates of the number of quangos in existence in the 1990s vary from 2,000 to 5,000 and estimates of the amount of money spent annually also vary widely.

When a new labour government came to power in 1997 it committed itself to reducing the number of NDPBs, but as follows from the report of the all-party parliamentary select committee on public administration, there was “unprecedented eruption” of advisory quangos in the first 18 months of the new government when ministers established 295 “task forces” to give policy advice on a wide range of issues. The committee said it was disappointed at the low priority attached to public access to executive NDPBs, commenting, “There are more black holes than examples of open governance”.

Before the rapid increase on quangos in the 1980s and 1990s, it was generally accepted that the bodies that then had corresponding duties were accountable to the public and should provide information about their activities to the public. Many of them – for example, the old water authorities but not the new water companies – were required to admit the press to their meetings. They were generally required to provide documentation.

The argument of accountability no longer applies in the same way. Demands for information can be countered by the argument that the body cannot operate in market conditions when the details of its operations are known to its competitors. Public access to information would therefore work against normal commercial confidentiality.

The minister in charge of the water companies justified the clamp-down on public access by saying these companies were no longer operating like public corporations but more like private bodies under the Companies Act, with executive and business responsibilities.

TASK V       If you were a Member of Parliament would you approve or reject each of the following Current reforms, give your reasons:

 

The present government has attempted to find an accommodation between liberal and communitarian ideas in the form of a package of constitutional reforms. They comprise the following:

• attempts to disperse democratic mechanisms more widely by creating devolved governments falling short of a federal system elected partly by proportional representation in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

• attempts to strengthen individual rights by enacting some of the rights contained in the European Convention on Human Rights but not so as to override the traditional doctrine of Parliamentary supremacy (Human Rights Act 1998).

• proposals to introduce a Freedom of Information Act which will give the public a limited right to see some government documents.

• reforms to the House of Lords which will remove the rights of hereditary peers to sit in the Lords, although no decision has yet been made as to what will replace them or what the role of the second chamber will be.

• reforms to local government in the form of a smaller and more focused executive responsible to an elected assembly instead of the corporate structure that exists today

These reforms are a familiar catalogue of matters that have been on the agenda for many years. They have been criticised as lacking a coherent framework. However they seem to be driven by the aim of providing a range of mechanisms, 'multi-layered democracy', that allows different interests and different values to be put into the public arena.

 

TASK VI     a) Read the text; express your opinion about the standards discussed;

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