Governmental Systems

Classical Greece and ancient Rome separated governmental powers into independent branches with specific responsibilities. The modern model dividing government into executive, judiciary, and legislative branches descends from these origins through Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws (1748).

This does not exhaust the variations, but most countries have the basic executive, judicial, and legislative branches, differing from one country to another in their components, degree of separation, powers, prerogatives, responsibilities, and selection. New Zealand and Canada have little separation. In the UK, the legislative and executive are intertwined, the Prime Minister and Cabinet members having to be Members of Parliament; until 2009, the Law Lords (the high court) were members of the House of Lords, but now the judiciary is fully separate. Parliamentary systems tend toward less separation than presidential ones.

The US Constitution provides each branch with enumerated powers, intentionally creating conflicts as each attempts to expand its own authority while resisting encroachments by the others. Judges can declare laws unconstitutional (Marbury v. Madison 1803). Congress can investigate members of the judiciary and the executive branches, impeach and try judges and presidents, enact taxes, borrow, set the budget and has sole power to declare war but cannot then direct the conduct of military campaigns (ex parte Milligan 1866). Presidents can command the military but cannot take authority for the national economy from Congress even to prosecute a war (Youngstown Sheet and Tub v. Sawyer 1952). Judges often are accused of legislating from the bench, two prominent examples in the US being Brown v. Board of Education (1954) desegregating public schools and Roe v. Wade (1973) decriminalizing abortion. The President initiates the appointment of judges and negotiates treaties but in both cases confirmation requires the approval of the Senate. The President can veto congressional bills and can grant pardons (except in cases of impeachment). All this rests on the assumption that this system of “checks and balances” is the best way to protect individual liberty.