sepration of powers

Introduction “To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them .”

Charles de Montesquieu Understanding that a government's role is to protect individual rights, but acknowledging that governments have historically been the major violators of these rights, a number of measures have been derived to reduce this likelihood. The concept of Separation of Powers is one such measure.1 There are three distinct activities in every government through w hich the will of the  people are expressed. These are the legislative, executive and judicial functions of the government. Corresponding to these three activities are three organs of the government, namely the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. The legislative organ of the state mak es laws, the executive enforces them and the judiciary applies them to the specific cases arising out of the  breach of law. 2 According to the theory of separation of powers, these three powers and functions of the Government must, in a free democracy, always be kept separate and be exercised by three separate organs of the Government. Thus, legislature cannot exercise legislative or judicial power; the Executive cannot exercise legislative or judicial and the Judiciary cannot exercise legislative or executive power of the Government.3 But each organ while performing its activities tends to interfere in the sph ere of working of  another functionary because a strict demarcation of functions is not possible in their dealings with the general public. Thus, even when acting in ambit of their own power, overlapping functions tend to appear amongst these organs. The premise behind the Separation of Powers is that when a single person or group has a large amount of power, they can become dangerous to citizens. The Separation of Power is a method of removing the amount of power in any group's hands, making it more difficult to abuse.

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http://legalservicesindia.com/article/article/separation-of-power-in-india-usa-483-1.html http://www.legalserviceindia.com/article/l16-Separation-Of-Powers.html 3 Basu, D.D., „Administrative Law‟, Kamal Law House, Kolkata, Sixth Edition, 2004 2

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