What separation of powers means
Launch library · evergreen read
Separation of powers divides the core functions of government, making laws, enforcing them, and adjudicating disputes about them, between three distinct branches: the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. The aim is to prevent any single branch from accumulating unchecked authority over the other two branches entirely.
Each branch typically holds some power to check the others, a design often described as checks and balances between institutions. A parliament can pass laws but courts can rule on their validity, while an executive that oversees enforcement is itself bound by laws it did not solely write or control on its own.
In practice the lines between branches are rarely perfectly clean, and healthy systems tolerate some reasonable overlap between them. What matters most is that no single branch can indefinitely override the others without meaningful resistance built into the wider system itself, regardless of how popular that branch happens to be.