A salutary lesson indeed.secret.simon wrote:Very careful there, noajthan. While the concept of the separation of powers arose from Montesquieu's admiration of the British system as it was in the seventeenth century, the UK never did have a complete separation of power the way it is understood currently. Even today, many parts of the UK constitution work across "powers". Ministers are both a part of the executive and a part of the legislature. Until the 1880s, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was both a minister and a judge of the Court of Exchequer. if the Chancellorship was vacant, the Lord Chief Justice deputised as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Till as recently as 2005, the Lord Chancellor was simultaneously the seniormost judge in the country, a minister and Speaker of the Hours of Lords. So, go light on the "separation of powers" theory. (There is a delicate irony in my being a first-generation migrant who understands the UK constitution better than most people born in this country).noajthan wrote:Another win for the time-honoured separation of powers.
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Things have evidently gone downhill since British Constitution was removed from the A-level curriculum.