Glossary of the legal terminology (English-Ukrainian)

The glossary of legal terminology presented to your attention contains legal terms in two languages English and Ukrainian and their a brief description. In the glossary, the terms are presented in Latin alphabetical order. The glossary will be helpful for law-related workers, people engaged in legal literature translations, and the general public.

The glossary discusses terms in the following sections of the legal system:

1. Judicial systems and jurisdiction

2. The procedure of criminal proceedings

3. Civil litigation.

4. Stages of the trial

5. Preliminary hearing and jury trial

6. Legal ethics

7. Constitutional law

8. Crimes against the person, property, and human habitation

9. Offenses and causing harm. Intentional offenses. Murder,

10. Crimes against morality and drug abuse

11. Negligence and liability

12. Conclusion of contracts. Contract requirements. Third parties and contract execution

13. Unified Commercial Code and contracts for the sale of goods

14. Personal property and liens. Intellectual property

15. Wills. The main provisions of the will and essential reservations and instructions.

16. Disinheritance. Revocation of the will, expiration, and exceptions.

17. Absence of a will. A personal representative of the property. Agency law

18. Settlement of property status. Acquisition of ownership of the real estate. Multiple ownership of the real estate

19. Mortgage loans. Landlord and tenant

20. The procedure of marriage and divorce

21. Commercial organizations. Bankruptcy Law

22. U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)

The difficulty of translating terms lies in different legal systems in English-speaking countries and the Ukrainian. Therefore, it is sometimes difficult to find similar legal terms in these legal systems, and some terms were described by direct translation from one language to another.

The leading legal systems in named countries are the Anglo-Saxon and Romano-Germanic legal systems. The most critical differences in the Anglo-Saxon and Romano-Germanic law systems are that the Anglo-Saxon system of law is based on judicial precedents. In contrast, the Romano-Germanic system is based on normative legal acts. Anglo-Saxon law is not divided into public and private (Anglo-Saxon law does not have a structure of clarity and systematicity, unlike the Romano-Germanic legal system).

English law is the legal system of England and most of the states of the British Commonwealth of Nations and the United States. English law can be divided into two inextricably linked branches: general (or case law) and the law of statutes – acts of Parliament.

The essence of English common law is that the courts create it. Thus, in the course of hearings, based on the principle of stare decisis ("strictly adhering to what was decided earlier"), apply legal precedents to the facts and circumstances of each particular trial. The degree of legal force of judicial decisions depends on the court's position in the hierarchy of the judicial system. The hierarchy's highest court of appeal decisions is a binding legal precedent for application by lower courts.

Statutes are a codified reflection of case law since they are sets of rules from judicial precedents. The Parliament only has to bring the process to a logical conclusion by adopting the so-called "acts on legal reforms," amending the existing statutes, and formalizing the already actively applied law norms.