Separation of power in the USA

The United States Constitution has a more rigid separation of powers than the Constitutions of other democracies. In the United States Constitution, Article 1 Section I gives Congress only those “legislative powers herein granted” and proceeds to list those permissible actions in Article I Section 8, while Section 9 lists actions that are prohibited for Congress.

The vesting clause in Article II places no limits on the Executive branch, simply stating that, “The Executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.

The Supreme Court holds “The judicial Power” according to Article III, and it established the implication of Judicial review in Marbury v. Madison. Checks and balances allow for a system based regulation that allows one branch to limit another, such as the power of Congress to alter the composition and jurisdiction of the federal courts. The following are illustrations where there are checks and balances:

1. The lawmaking power of the Congress is checked by the President through its veto power, which in turn maybe overturn by the legislature
2. The Congress may refuse to give its concurrence to an amnesty proclaimed by the President and the Senate to a treaty he has concluded
3. The President may nullify a conviction in a criminal case by pardoning the offender
4. The Congress may limit the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and that of inferior courts and even abolish the latter tribunals
5. The Judiciary in general has the power to declare invalid an act done by the Congress, the President and his subordinates, or the Constitutional Commissions.

Separation of power in England

Although the doctrine of separation of power plays a role in the United Kingdom’s constitutional doctrine, the UK constitution is often described as having “a weak separation of powers”. For example, in the United Kingdom, the executive forms a subset of the legislature, as did—to a lesser extent—the judiciary until the establishment of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

The Prime Minister, the Chief Executive, sits as a member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, either as a peer in the House of Lords or as an elected member of the House of Commons (by convention, and as a result of the supremacy of the Lower House, the Prime Minister now sits in the House of Commons) and can effectively be removed from office by a simple majority vote.

Furthermore, while the courts in the United Kingdom are undoubtedly amongst the most independent in the world, the Law Lords, who were the final arbiters of judicial disputes in the UK sat simultaneously in the House of Lords, the upper house of the legislature, although this arrangement ceased in 2009 when the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom came into existence.

Until 2005, the Lord Chancellor fused the Legislature, Executive and Judiciary, as he was the ex officio Speaker of the House of Lords, a Government Minister who sat in Cabinet and was head of the Lord Chancellor’s Department which administered the courts, the justice system and appointed judges, and was the head of the Judiciary in England and Wales and sat as a judge on the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords, the highest domestic court in the entire United Kingdom, and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the senior tribunal court for parts of the Commonwealth.

The Lord Chancellor also had certain other judicial positions, including being a judge in the Court of Appeal and President of the Chancery Division. The Lord Chancellor combines other aspects of the constitution, including having certain ecclesiastical functions of the established state church, making certain church appointments, nominations and sitting as one of the thirty-three Church Commissioners. These functions remain intact and unaffected by the Constitutional Reform Act.

In 2005, the Constitutional Reform Act separated the powers with Legislative functions going to an elected Lord Speaker and the Judicial functions going to the Lord Chief Justice. The Lord Chancellor’s Department was replaced with a Ministry of Justice and the Lord Chancellor currently serves in the position of Secretary of State for Justice.

Some other countries

The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, 1900 clearly demarcates the boundaries of the three organs and therefore provides for a very rigid separation of powers.

Similarly, the French Constitution also provides for separation of powers and divides the national government into the executive, legislative and judicial branch.