Reading Comprehension of General and Legal Texts

However, fluency in general English is not enough. It is necessary to understand English legal terms, vocabulary, collocations and concepts in order to fully understand legal texts. In order to convey a general vision of the common law, tools other than logic are necessary. This is something to show that the coherence of a system requires a certain result, but that`s not all. The life of law was not logical: it was experience. The perceived necessities of the time, the prevailing moral and political theories, the intuitions of public policy, whether professed or unconscious, even the prejudices that judges share with their fellows, had much more to do than the syllogism in establishing the rules according to which people should be governed. The law embodies the history of a nation`s development over many centuries, and it cannot be treated as containing only the axioms and conclusions of a mathematics book. To know what it is, we need to know what it was and what it tends to become. It is necessary to consult alternately the history and the existing theories of the legislation. But the hardest work will be figuring out how the two combine to create new products at each stage. The substance of the law at a given time is almost equivalent to what is then understood as convenient; But its form and machinery, as well as the degree to which it is able to achieve the desired results, depend very much on its past. Prior to the adoption of the Constitution, attempts were made in some colonies and states to enact laws not only concerning the establishment of religion, but also concerning its teachings and commandments.

People were taxed against their will for supporting religion and sometimes for supporting certain sects that they could not join and did not sign. Penalties were provided for not attending public worship and sometimes for holding [98 U.S. 145, 163] heretical views. Controversy over this general issue was stoked in many states, but eventually seemed to reach its peak in Virginia. In 1784 the House of Delegates of that state, which had considered «a bill making provision for teachers of the Christian religion,» adjourned it to the next session, ordering that the bill be published and distributed, and that the people be invited to «express their opinion on the passage of such a law at the next session of the assembly.» The author discusses the general interpretation of the Supreme Court`s decision Roe v. Wade to point out that popular knowledge of the decision to legalize abortion does not reflect the nuances of the reasoning behind the case. In particular, the author notes that the general view of the case is oversimplification and misunderstanding, but also points out that the dissenting opinion is more important than is generally assumed. More importantly, the decision was a 7-2 decision, meaning that in addition to the majority opinion finding a right to privacy, there were two dissenting opinions that explicitly did not find such a right. Justice Byron White wrote, «I can find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the court`s decision.» While lower courts, legislators and law enforcement officials had to follow the majority opinion, a future Supreme Court decision may examine what Justice White argued and declare that there is in fact no privacy rights inherent in the Fourteenth Amendment. This is the part of the Supreme Court decisions that leaves the public most perplexed. The majority decision is considered to have the force of law, but all opinions are part of the broader record and structure of the Supreme Court. This means that when filtered through the arguments of the Supreme Court, the law of the land can and will change depending on who is sitting on the nine chairs in the gallery in the Supreme Court building.

The Supreme Court needs to make its decisions better understood by the general public. Americans generally do not understand the full meaning or the true arguments of Supreme Court decisions. Considerations that respond to the equality argument also respond to objections to treating man as a thing and so on. If a man lives in society, he is inclined to feel treated this way. The degree of civilization attained by a people is undoubtedly characterized by its fear of doing what it would do. Perhaps it is the fate of humanity that social instincts develop to absolutely control our actions, even in antisocial situations. But they have not yet done so, and since the rules of law are or should be based on a generally accepted morality, no rule based on a theory of absolute altruism can be established without a break between the law and the convictions of work. By improving your legal English skills, you will improve your reading comprehension when conducting legal research. If it is true, as I shall try to show shortly, that the general principles of criminal and civil liability are the same, it will only follow that theory and facts coincide in frequently punishing those who are not guilty of moral injustice and who could not be condemned according to any standard.

that did not explicitly disregard the personal characteristics of the persons concerned. If punishment were based on the moral reasons proposed, the first thing to consider would be the limitations in the ability to choose correctly that result from abnormal instincts, lack of education, lack of intelligence, and all the other most pronounced deficiencies in criminal classes. I`m not saying they shouldn`t be, or at least I don`t need them for my argument. I am not saying that the criminal law does more good than harm. I am simply saying that it is not promulgated or administered according to this theory. Take the famous Roe v. Wade of 1973. Popularly, the case is known as the event that legalized abortion across the United States and became a focal point for abortion and anti-abortion activists in the four decades since the court`s decision. In fact, the court ruled that there is an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution through the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause that cannot be violated by state or federal laws prohibiting the abortion of a fetus, whether it is the woman requesting an abortion or the doctor.

who performs the procedure. In essence, the court did not claim that abortion was legal, but rather that the state could not make abortion illegal. The practical difference may be quite small, but the legal difference is significant. Another way to improve comprehension is to visualize and analyze ASL LEGAL texts from a variety of speakers. Display text and attribute what you understand. Come back to use mapping from your first view and broaden your understanding of the missing pieces. Continue to develop your understanding of the text until you understand everything. If you find that you are missing the same type of information each time – for example, Information written with fingers or numbers or pronouns (who speaks or who is the agent and receiver of actions) or transitions between topics, then work on these elements by engaging in the activities described in the Living Skills Development section. You cannot use all the source documents available in English if you have difficulty understanding the text. General English skills can only take you up to a certain point: a lawyer researching legal texts needs a high level of legal English to understand what is being read. This activity guide enhances legal interpretation skills by offering strategies to improve understanding of an ASL message. The main point of the author`s argument is that people are more likely to present themselves honestly and show their shortcomings to those who consider them unimportant or who are least likely to harm their personal well-being.