Sunday Blues

TASK 1. Read the text.

The so-called blue laws in the United States might better be called Sunday laws, because their intent has been to restrict or forbid business, trade, paid work, or other commercial activities on Sunday, the Sabbath of major Christian sects. In the mid-1980s blue laws had been repealed or simply ignored in many parts of the nation but continued to be observed in certain religious communities.

Secular arguments against blue laws are that they violate the constitutional guarantee of separation of church and state and favour one religion, Christianity. A secular argument supporting them is that everybody needs a day of rest each week. Proscribing work on Sundays goes back at least to 4th-century Rome under Constantine the Great, and the practice was strictly supported in the religion-oriented American colonies. The term blue law is said to have arisen from a list of Sabbath rules printed on blue paper for residents of New Haven, Connecticut, in 1781.

TASK 2. Find in the text the words that mean the opposite.

- to unite;

- pay attention to;

- minor;

- for;

- to allow.

TASK 3. Find in the text the words that correspond to the following definitions.

- to regulate, limit;

- to revoke a law;

- to maintain a condition, course or action without interruption;

- to comply with, infringe;

- to put outside the protection of the law;

- meaning, significance.

4."Let the Body Be Brought..."

TASK 1. Read the text.

In the United States, Britain, and many other English-speaking countries, the law of Habeas Corpus guarantees that nobody can be held in prison without trial. Habeas Corpus became law because of a wild party held in 1621 at the London home of a notoriously rowdy lady, Alice Robinson. When a constable appeared and asked her and her guests to quiet down, Mrs. Robinson allegedly swore at him so violently that he arrested her, and a local justice of the peace committed her to jail.

When she was finally brought to trial, Mrs. Robinson's story of her treatment in prison caused an outcry. She had been put on a punishment diet of bread and water, forced to sleep on the bare earth, stripped, and given 50 lashes. Such treatment was barbaric even by the harsh standards of the time; what made it worse was that Mrs. Robinson was pregnant.

Public anger was so great that she was acquitted, the constable who had arrested her without a warrant was himself sent to prison, and the justice of the peace was severely reprimanded. And the case, along with other similar cases, led to the passing of the Habeas Corpus Act in Britain in 1679. The law is still on the British statute books, and a version of it is used in the United States, where the law was regarded as such an important guarantee of liberty that Article 1 of the Constitution declares that Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended except in cases of "rebellion or invasion".

Habeas Corpus is part of a Latin phrase - Habeas corpus ad subjiciendum - that means "Let the body be brought before the judge." In effect, a writ of Habeas Corpus is an order in the name of the people (or, in Britain, of the sovereign) to produce an imprisoned person in court at once.

TASK 2 Find in the text the words that correspond to the following definitions.

- an order in writing issued under seal in the name of the sovereign or of a court or judicial officer commanding or forbidding an act specified in

it;

- a place of enforced confinement;

- the formal examination and determination by a competent tribunal of the matter at issue in a civil or criminal cause;

- sanction; a document authorizing an officer to make an arrest, a search, etc.;

- well-known, esp. for a specified unfavourable quality or trait;

- a public expression of anger or disapproval;

- a law passed by a legislative body and recorded;

- jail, penitentiary;

- entering the country with hostile purposes;

- to compel by physical, moral or intellectual means;

- to declare not guilty.