Separation of powers Totally Explained

Everything about Separation Of Powers totally explained

Separation of powers, a term coined by French political Enlightenment thinker Baron de Montesquieu, is a model for the governance of democratic states. The model is also known as Trias Politica.
   The model was first developed by the ancient Greeks in the constitutions that governed their city-states; however, it first came into widespread use by the Roman Republic. It was outlined in the Constitution of the Roman Republic.
   Under this model, the state is divided into branches or estates, and each estate of the state has separate and independent powers and areas of responsibility. The normal division of estates is into the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial.
   Proponents of separation of powers believe that it protects democracy and forestalls tyranny. Opponents of separation of powers question whether it accomplishes this end, and point out the success of mingling powers in parliamentary democracies. Furthermore critics have pointed out that, regardless of whether it accomplishes the end of forestalling tyranny, it may slow down the process of governing, promote executive dictatorship and unaccountability, and tend to marginalize the legislature.
   No democratic system exists with an absolute separation of powers or an absolute lack of separation of powers. Nonetheless, some systems are clearly founded on the principle of separation of powers, while others are clearly based on a mingling of powers.

Origins in the Constitution of the Roman Republic

While the idea of a separation of powers probably first originated in the constitutions of Greek City-States more than 2,500 years ago, the idea first came into widespread use by the Roman Republic. The Constitution of the Roman Republic, which mandated such a separation of powers, was largely unwritten and passed down through precedent. However, the three branches of government in the Roman Republic remained mostly independent for five hundred years.
The government of the Roman Republic divided power into three independent branches: the senate, the legislative branch and the executive branch. The senate made military and foreign policy, and directed domestic policy. It also issued orders to executive branch officials, which, in practice, were usually obeyed. The Roman Senate wasn't a legislative body, and it didn't pass laws. The legislative branch had two primary functions. First, it elected all executive officials. Election to such office usually meant automatic membership in the senate (senate terms were for life). The second major function of the legislative branch was to pass domestic laws. These legislative assemblies were not bodies of elected representatives. Rather, they were bodies of citizens, participating in a direct-democracy legislative system. The laws (Latin: lex) passed by these assemblies were called plebiscites (the modern equivalent of popular referenda). Members of the executive branch commanded the military, enforced the laws, and acted as high judges. A network of checks and balances existed between the three branches. This system of checks and balances was designed to prevent the accumulation of too much power into the hands of a single individual.

Montesquieu's tripartite system

Montesquieu described division of political power among an executive, a legislature, and a judiciary. He based this model on the British constitutional system, in which he perceived a separation of powers among the monarch, Parliament, and the courts of law. Subsequent writers have noted that this was misleading, since Great Britain had a very closely connected legislature and executive, with further links to the judiciary (though combined with judicial independence). But in Montesquieu's time, the political connection between Britain's Parliament and the monarch's Ministry wasn't as close as it would later become.
The Delegates were also very sharply divided.The Delegates also agreed with Montesquieu. Montesquieu did specify that "the independence of the judiciary has to be real, and not apparent merely". "The judiciary was generally seen as the most important of powers, independent and unchecked", and also considered the least dangerous.

Separation of powers vs. fusion of powers

In democratic systems of governance, a continuum exists between "Presidential government" and "Parliamentary government". "Separation of powers" is a feature more inherent to presidential systems, whereas "fusion of powers" is characteristic of parliamentary ones. "Mixed systems" fall somewhere in between, usually near the midpoint; the most notable example of a mixed system is France's (current) Fifth Republic.
In fusion of powers, one estate (invariably the elected legislature) is supreme, and the other estates are subservient to it. In separation of powers, each estate is largely (although not necessarily entirely) independent of the others. Independent in this context means either that selection of each estate happens independently of the other estates or at least that each estate isn't beholden to any of the others for its continued existence.
Accordingly, in a fusion of powers system such as that of the United Kingdom, first described as such by Walter Bagehot, the people elect the legislature, which in turn "creates" the executive. As Professor Cheryl Saunders writes, "...the intermixture of institutions [inthe UK] is such that it's almost impossible to describe it as a separation of powers." In a separation of powers, the national legislature doesn't select the person or persons of the executive; instead, the executive is chosen by other means (direct popular election, electoral college selection, etc.) In a parliamentary system, when the term of the legislature ends, so too may the tenure of the executive selected by that legislature. Although in a presidential system the executive's term may or may not coincide with the legislature's, their selection is technically independent of the legislature. However, when the executive's party controls the legislature, the executive often reaps the benefits of what is, in effect, a "fusion of powers". Such situations may thwart the constitutional goal or normal popular perception that the legislature is the more democratic branch or the one "closer to the people", reducing it to a virtual "consultative assembly", politically or procedurally unable—or unwilling—to hold the executive accountable in the event of blatant, even boldly admitted, "high crimes and misdemeanors."

Other branches

Auditory

With the title Comptroller General, Auditor General or Comptroller and Auditor General, the European Union's Court of Auditors and Taiwan's Control Yuan are individual or bodies of independent ombudsmen. They are often independent of the other branches of government.
Their purpose is to audit government expenditure and general activity.

Civil examination

Sun Yat Sen proposed a branch of government based on the Imperial examination system used in China. The "Examination Yuan" (Traditional Chinese: 考試院; pinyin: Kǎoshì Yuàn), as it's called in Taiwan, is in charge of validating the qualification of civil servants. This structure has been implemented in the Republic of China.

Data

In Germany there's a notion of protecting personal information called Datenschutz. It is represented by its own commissioners. Additionally there's the BStU dealing with the Stasi-Archives and the German Federal Archives, each providing access to data only in accordance with special laws.

Electoral

Costa Rica's Supreme Elections Tribunal is a branch of government that manages elections. Similar independent institutions exist in many other democratic countries, however they're not seen as a branch of government. In many countries, these are known as Electoral Commissions.

The people

Many philosophers and political scientists believe that democratic governments are created and constitutions exist to serve the people. The people have their own system of checks and balances by electing the legislative and executive branches. The government also draws its power directly from the people. Without the people, there's no government, just as without the legislative branch, there can be no judicial branch.
In the Constitution of Venezuela, the "citizen's power" is a formal branch of government, though it acts like auditors' branches in other jurisdictions.
See also:

Independent executive agencies

The federal executive of the United States is a very large bureaucracy, and due to civil service rules, most middle- and low-level government workers don't change when a new President is elected. (New high-level officials are usually appointed and must be confirmed by the Senate.) Moreover, semi-independent agencies (such as the Federal Reserve or the Federal Communications Commission) may be created within the executive by the legislature. These agencies exercise legally defined regulatory powers. High-level regulators are appointed by the President and confirmed by the legislature; they must follow the law and certain lawful executive orders. But they often sit for long, fixed terms and enjoy reasonable independence from other policy makers. Because of its importance to modern governance, the regulatory bureaucracy of the executive is sometimes referred to as a "fourth" branch of government.
This separation is even more pronounced in the United Kingdom. The separation was a prominent element of the Yes Minister comedy television series. ====

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