Тема: Політичні системи України та Великобританії

1. Робота з текстом. Прочитайте текст та виконайте завдання після нього.

Political systems of Great Britain and Ukraine

1. The first distinction may seem to be the form of rule:

Ukraine is a respublic. And Britain, as you probably know, is considered to be a parliamentary monarchy.

The Queen is the personification of the U.K. By law, she is the head of the executive branch, an integral part of the legislature, the head of the judiciary, the commander-in-chief of all armed forces of the Crown and the temporal head of the established Church of England. But in practice, as a result of a long evolutionary process, these powers have changed. Today, the queen acts only on the advice of her Ministers which she cannot constitutionally ignore. In fact she reigns but she doesn’t rule. However, the monarchy has a good deal more power than is commonly supposed. There remain certain discretionary powers in the hands of the monarch, known as the Royal Prerogative.

2. The Ukrainian and the British Parliaments have at least four similar functions:

to work out legislation, including the creation of a budget;

to control the government;

to represent and respond to public opinion;

to influence actively the people by acquainting them openly with the facts, concerning the accepted desisions.

The difference lies in the electoral systems and the rules for recalling the government.

But there is also one more remarkable peculiarity of the Ukrainian Parliament: the political history of Ukraine does not know any potent legislative bodies (we can hardly take into account the experience of the Soviet Congress).

3. Both Ukraine and Britain are countries with the representative democracy (which means that the people delegate power to the bodies, which act on their behalf).

The difference is, that Britain has a parliamentary form of government, and Ukraine, in its turn, has a so-called “semi-presidential” form. The main distinctions of this forms are shown in the table, given below.

The British parliamentary form

The Ukrainian “semi-pesidential” form

1. The election solves two questions:

On one hand, the forming of the Parliament. And on the other hand, the creation of the Government and different coalitions.

1. The election solves just one question:

Either the problem of forming the Parliament or the creation of the Government.

2. The Government is formed only by the Parliament.

2. The Government is formed byboth the President and the Parliament.

3. The executive Power is separated.

3. The executive Power is not separated.

4. Unlike Britain, Ukraine has different bodies of legislative and executive power, and one body doesn’t interfere with the activity of the other.

5. The negative features of the British system may seem to be too much power in the hands of Prime Minister and rather uncontrolled local government.

2. Виконайте письмово вправи, подані нижче.

1. Match the following English political terms with their Ukrainian equivalents: (Поєднайте політичні терміни з їх українськими еквівалентами)

2. Дайте письмово відповіді на запитання:

Does Ukrainian political system have any common features with the British ones? What are they?