John Locke
Palace of Westminster in February 2007
Constitution of the Year XII (First French Republic)
Montesquieu
Map showing the terminology for each country's national legislature
Constitution of the Kingdom of Naples in 1848.
George Washington at Constitutional Convention of 1787, signing of U.S. Constitution
The Congress of the Republic of Peru, the country's national legislature, meets in the Legislative Palace in 2010
Detail from Hammurabi's stele shows him receiving the laws of Babylon from the seated sun deity.
The British House of Commons, its lower house
Diagram illustrating the classification of constitutions by Aristotle.
The German Bundestag, its theoretical lower house
Third volume of the compilation of Catalan Constitutions of 1585
The Australian Senate, its upper house
The Cossack Constitution of Pylyp Orlyk, 1710.
A painting depicting George Washington at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 signing of the U.S. Constitution
Constitution of May 3, 1791 (painting by Jan Matejko, 1891). Polish King Stanisław August (left, in regal ermine-trimmed cloak), enters St. John's Cathedral, where Sejm deputies will swear to uphold the new Constitution; in background, Warsaw's Royal Castle, where the Constitution has just been adopted.
Presidential copy of the Russian Constitution.
Magna Carta
United States Constitution

The typical division is into three branches: a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary, which is sometimes called the trias politica model.

- Separation of powers

Some political systems follow the principle of legislative supremacy, which holds that the legislature is the supreme branch of government and cannot be bound by other institutions, such as the judicial branch or a written constitution.

- Legislature

On the other hand, according to the separation of powers doctrine, the legislature in a presidential system is considered an independent and coequal branch of government along with both the judiciary and the executive.

- Legislature

Constitutions with a high degree of separation of powers are found worldwide.

- Separation of powers

Most of the concepts and ideas embedded into modern constitutional theory, especially bicameralism, separation of powers, the written constitution, and judicial review, can be traced back to the experiments of that period.

- Constitution

The standard model, described by the Baron de Montesquieu, involves three branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial.

- Constitution
John Locke

4 related topics with Alpha

Overall

World administrative levels

Government

1 links

System or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.

System or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.

World administrative levels
Map of European nations coloured by percentage of vote governing party got in last election as of 2022
Governments recognised as "electoral democracies" by the Freedom in the World survey
Separation of powers in the US government, demonstrating the tria politica model

In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary.

In many countries, the government has a kind of constitution, a statement of its governing principles and philosophy.

An independent, parallel distribution of powers between branches of government is the separation of powers.

Presidential system

1 links

A presidential system, or single executive system, is a form of government in which a head of government, typically with the title of president, leads an executive branch that is separate from the legislative branch in systems that use separation of powers.

These countries modeled their constitutions after that of the United States, and the presidential system became the dominant political system in the Americas.

The Commonwealth Law Courts Building in Melbourne, the location of the Melbourne branches of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia, the Federal Court of Australia, the Family Court of Australia, as well as occasional High Court of Australia sittings

Judiciary

0 links

System of courts that adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and applies the law in legal cases.

System of courts that adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and applies the law in legal cases.

The Commonwealth Law Courts Building in Melbourne, the location of the Melbourne branches of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia, the Federal Court of Australia, the Family Court of Australia, as well as occasional High Court of Australia sittings
Corpus Iuris Civilis, 1607
Gratian
Lady Justice (Latin: Justicia), symbol of the judiciary. Statue at Shelby County Courthouse, Memphis, Tennessee

Under the doctrine of the separation of powers, the judiciary generally does not make statutory law (which is the responsibility of the legislature) or enforce law (which is the responsibility of the executive), but rather interprets, defends, and applies the law to the facts of each case.

Courts with judicial review power may annul the laws and rules of the state when it finds them incompatible with a higher norm, such as primary legislation, the provisions of the constitution, treaties or international law.

Parliamentary sovereignty

0 links

Concept in the constitutional law of some parliamentary democracies.

Concept in the constitutional law of some parliamentary democracies.

It holds that the legislative body has absolute sovereignty and is supreme over all other government institutions, including executive or judicial bodies.

It also holds that the legislative body may change or repeal any previous legislation and so it is not bound by written law (in some cases, not even a constitution) or by precedent.

In some countries, parliamentary sovereignty may be contrasted with separation of powers, which limits the legislature's scope often to general law-making and makes it subject to external judicial review, where laws passed by the legislature may be declared invalid in certain circumstances.