Text 5. Administration of Justice in the UK

I. Read and translate the following text.

The highest judicial body in the British judicial system is the House of Lords. The Law Lords are life peers who hear appeals as members of the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords.

Most prosecutions in Britain are initiated by the police. As soon as a person is arrested, he must be brought to court with the minimum of delay. If the case is not serious and can't be tried quickly, an arrested person is granted bail. Judges are appointed from practicing lawyers, nearly always ex-barristers. Law magistrates try less serious criminal cases. The more serious cases are tried by the jury. The jury is a group of ordinary citizens, traditionally 12 in number and chosen at random, who decide on guilt or innocence. The accused person is considered innocent until his guilt is proved.

The most common punishments are fines, probation, a suspended sentence and a sentence of community service. Long-term and life imprisonment are the penalties for the most serious crimes. Capital punishment in Great Britain was suspended in the XX century, but a lot of people nowadays think that the death penalty for certain categories of murder should be reintroduced.