法律英语第九十课重点翻译

•Even societies that do not permit private ownership of wealth to the degree that ours does are likely to recognize the personal rights of individuals to be free from certain kinds of conduct …•即使是那些对财产私有权的许可没有达到我们这种程度的社会，也会承认个人的人身权利不受某种行为的侵犯。

Infliction of physical injuryOther interferences with freedom or dignity•给人造成身体伤害•其他对个人自由或尊严的侵犯Ownership of property•Include the right to use and consume the thing owned•所有权包括对属于自己的物品使用和耗费的权利•be more to the advantage of the owner to transfer the right of the ownership to some other person in exchange for something else of value•有时所有者以所有权与其他人交换有价值的东西可能更有利•Agreements for exchange are the means by which some resources are assembled and put to productive use.•交换的契约是将一些资源组合起来，使之得到有效利用的手段。

•Some agreement for exchange call for the immediate and simultaneous exchange of money for goods and services.•有效交换契约要求现金与货物、服务的立即和同时交换。

Exchange of significant size涉及到大额交易时•Both the planning and performance to be spread over a considerable period of time•交易的计划和履行都要经历相当长的时间。

The law of contracts•Legal mechanism for protecting the expectations that arise from the making of agreements for the future exchange of various types of performance.•合同法是保护预期的法律机制，该预期产生于就未来交易各类履行而制定的契约。

•Legal problems do not always fit neatly into the pigeonholes that legal theorists have created.•法律问题不可能总是与法理学家所创立的分类完全相符。

•Frequently they raise issues involving more than one body of law.•法律问题往往涉及到不止一部法律。

The web of the law•May not be quite seamless•法律之网可能并非结实无缝•They are not ironclad and unchanging•法律并非打不破和不可改变。

•Judge-made law•法官定法•Rules distilled from a composite of court decisions in prior cases.•从以前案件的各种法官判决意见中抽取出来的规则Judicial system of decision-making 司法决策体制•Stare decisis 遵从前例–adherence to past decisions (Precedents)• A prior decision with facts sufficiently similar to the case “subjudice”, that the court feels obliged to follow it and to render a similar decision.•以前案例的事实与尚未判决的案件事实非常相似，法院认为有义务按照前例做出类似的判决。

从两个方面证明以判例法为主要依据的法律制度的合法性• 1. Offers a high degree of predictability of decision …•提高了判决的可预见性程度……• 2. Puts a rein on the nature proclivity of judges to decide cases on the basis of prejudice, personal emotion, or other improper factors.•限制法官在案件判决时以偏见、个人情感或其他不恰当因素为基础的自然癖好。

The characteristic of a system•Which may sometimes be a virtue, sometimes a defect, of being static and conservative, generally oriented toward preservation of the status quo.•遵从前例的制度的特征是静止和守旧，总体上趋向于保持现状，这有时是优点，有时是缺点。

Blind adherence•When a common law judge concludes that blind adherence to precedent would produce an unjust result in the case presented for decision.•普通法法官盲目坚持判例，也会导致对当前案例判决的不公正结果。

• A precedent is considered to be “binding” on a court only if it was decided by that same court or by an appellate court of higher rank in the same jurisdiction.•避免的方法•同一个管辖区的相同法院或其上级巡回法院作出的先例判决才有约束力。

•Other precedents are be “ persuasive”.–其他判例只具有劝导性。

•If a precedent of the latter type is in fact unpersuasive, the judge is free to disregard it.•如果后一种类型的判例实际上没有劝导性，法官可以忽视该判例。

•If the precedent is not merely persuasive, but binding, it cannot simply be ignored. It may, however, be avoided.•如果判例不仅有劝导性而且有约束力，那么该判例不能简单地被忽视，但却可以被回避。

•If the facts of the present case do not include a fact that appears to have been necessary (“material”) to the earlier decision, the court may “distinguish” the precedent, render a different decision.•如果以前判决不包含对当前案例有实质必要影响的事实，那么法院可以“区别”前例，提出不同的判决。

•If the earlier precedent is indeed binding, but is difficult or impossible to distinguish, there is one other way to avoid its effect.•如果比较早的判例确实有约束力，但是难以或无法区别，有一个其他方法避免其效力。

•If the court of decision is the one that created the precedent (or is a higher court), it can simply “overrule” the early decision.•如果判决的法院与作出先例的法院相同，或者比作出先例的法院等级高，它可以“推翻”以前的判决。

Overruling –relatively drastic action•Is usually reserved for instances in which the court feels that the rule established by the earlier precedent was ill conceived at the outset or it has been outmoded by the later developments.•推翻前例是个比较激烈的行为，一般在法院觉得以前的判例一开始就设计错误时或者随着以后的发展该判例不合时宜时才采用。

•Historically, as common law普通法•Rather than statute 制定法•Exception : “statute of frauds”•“欺诈条例”是个例外Requires certain contracts to be evidenced by a signed writing该条例要求某些合同是书面合同。

•The statute of frauds has itself become so overlaid by court decisions that it has more of quality of common law than of a modern statute.•该欺诈条例本身已添加了如此多的法官判决意见，以至于它具有的普通法的品质已经超过其现代制定法的品质。

Contract law•Essentially a common law system, except be affected by a remarkable modern statute, the Uniform Commercial Code.•除非受到著名的现代制定法——统一商法典的影响，合同法至今还保留着普通法体系。