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The Need To Establish The Three Arms Of The Federal Government

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The need to protect individual rights and freedoms led the federal government to establish the three arms of the government namely; the judiciary, legislature and the executive arm. The branches have been founded on the background of the doctrine of separation of powers. According to this doctrine, no single arm is expected to be powerful than the others or influence or control the functioning of the other arms (Merrill, 1991). It dictates that each branch should act independently free from interference by the other arms of government. However, each branch has an oversight role to the functionality and conduct of the other arms. Interesting is that, all the branches work harmoniously towards the success and prosperity of the country. The constitution defines the arms and clearly points their functions. The concept of separation of powers is also explained by the constitution. The federal government strongly believes that it is through the separation of powers that individual interests and rights could be upheld. If the government operated as a single unit what will happen? Imagine one person making laws, evaluating their reasonableness and enforcing any deviations from such laws. Its clear conflicts of interests, bias and …show more content…

The concept entails the division of government roles into independent branches to limit the interference and influence of the branches in their core functions. The principle aims at preventing the abuse of power and providing mechanisms of checks and balances. According to this principle, each arm exercises an oversight role to the others. Elements of the doctrine include; no single individual should form more than one arm of the government, no arm of government should exercise control over the other and no single arm should interfere with the functionality of the other organs (Scalia, 1983). Montesquieu proposed that the government is divided into the three

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