Section A

Part 3 - The Law Machine

"The aim of this book is to explain, we hope clearly and entertainingly, how the machinery of justice – the law machine – actually works in practice. It is not designed to probe the content of particular laws, or to provide a guide to your rights. But laws and rights can only be properly understood if there is an appreciation of the legal process of which they form a part. A law on its own is meaningless unless it can be channelled through an effective legal machinery…
On almost every front there has been change, reassessment and new ideas. The legal profession has been shaken up, not always to its liking. The system of civil justice – the settlement of disputes – has been streamlined almost beyond recognition, and even its centuries-old vocabulary has been brought up to date. The funding of litigation has been drastically altered. "Access to justice for all" has become the government’s legal war cry….
… .In an average year Parliament passes between 45 and 60 new acts, some just a page or two, others running to over a hundred pages. Every year ministers and government departments make over two thousand new sets of rules and regulations which also have the full force and impact of the law. In hundreds of court cases every year judges interpret, restate and redefine the law. In the process new rights are created and new obligations and restrictions are imposed.
The ordinary citizen has only the vaguest notion of what the law expects of him and what it can do for him. Surveys show that not only are people largely ignorant of the legal remedies open to them, they are likely to be at a loss to know where to take a legal problem – or often even to identify it as a problem with a legal solution".

Source: “The Law Machine” by Berlins and Dyer, Fifth Edition,
Penguin Books, 2000,

Question 7
Which one of the following evaluations would compel the author’s agreement?

A Ignorance of the law is far greater than generally realised.
B Parliament passes too many acts and government departments make too many new regulations.
C Between Parliament and the judges the law changes too much.
D The law is too complex and too remote from people’s lives.
E Knowledge of the details of the law is less valuable than understanding its general process.

Question 8
Which one of the following assertions, if true, would be most damaging to the main intention of the authors?

A Books on the law are necessarily tedious.

B The law is too complex for a simple explanation.

C The law is too incoherent for a clear explanation.

D The ordinary citizen couldn’t care less about the law.

E The law is deliberately designed to be mystifying.

Question 9
Which of the following implications from the passage would the authors be likely to regard as the most important?

A The law is too complex and should be made simpler.

B The law should be made more comprehensible to the ordinary citizen.

C The lawmakers (Parliament) and the lawgivers (Judges) need to be more in touch with each other.

D The process of law has recently gone through too much change.

E The law is subject to too much bureaucracy.

Answers for part 3