LEGISLATURE

Common perception of the legislature is to make law. In actual practice, the modern
legislature is much more than a mere law-making body.
First function is law making. The Legislature will make a new law or to amend it or to
replace old laws. In a parliamentary system, the party which has majority in the parliament forms
the cabinet, so any bill from a minister should gets approval from parliament. Legislature
discusses and debates the bill which goes through several readings and committee stages before
becoming a law. The final authority of making laws lies in the hands of legislature.
Next function is representative. The legislature represents the people in the government.
According to Pitkin representation means ’making present of something absent but not making it
literally present. It must be made present indirectly, through an intermediary, it must be made
present in some sense, while nevertheless remaining literally absent`
This is exactly what a legislature does in a democratic system. The members of legislature are
the representatives of the public. They represent and ventilate the grievances of the people. The
Members frequently visit their constituency, home district, to listen to the people from his or her
riding and bring those issues and questions to the floor of the legislature a large number of
people cannot talk to the government directly. Legislature is a political compromise of direct and
indirect democracy.

Supervision is one of the functions of legislature. Legislature has authority of checking

and supervising the executive branch of government. In a modern democratic system legislature
keep sharp and critical eyes on the administration. It may be true that legislation is initiated by
the executive, but the legislature has the potential power to reject the bill. Even if it passes the
bill, the legislature has the power to monitor the activities of the government to make sure the
law is implemented correctly and effectively. The legislature can race and embarrassing
questions to the minister. Question Hour exist in every political systems .Even though it may be
possible for the minister to get the support of the majority in the legislature because of party link,
minister have to be very careful in answering question. In particular the Opposition party cab
race the questions in a very nasty way and if the minister fail to answer satisfactorily it can cause
the ruling party lost in the next election. The members of the cabinet are responsible at all time to
the legislature in a parliamentary system.

The legislature in many countries performs certain judicial function. Some legislatures
have the power to adjudicate the behavior the administrative official. In Canada and Malaysia
parliament does not impeach the king or minister because it has the power of defeating
government but a vote of no-confidence or by removing a minister from the cabinet who has
been found guilty of a crime.

Amending the constitution also part of legislature functions. in some countries, the
legislature plays the most important role in making and amending the constitution. The
legislature is given this authority because it is considered to be the legitimate representative
constitution of the people, and also the original constitution was drafted by the legislature. so it is
appropriate the legislature is authorized to play a vital roles in the process of constitutional
reform. In Malaysia, Canada, Britain, India and the USA and many other countries the amending
process must start in the legislature. The approval of amendment depends on the support of a
certain number of members of the legislature which differs from country to country.
EXECUTIVE

The most fundamental functions of the executive are those which relate to the essential
activities of daily administration. The state is now regarded as a mean for achieving the welfare
of its own people. Broadly speaking, essential functions of the executive are Internal
Administration, External Administration, Military Functions, Legislative Functions and Judicial
Functions.
In the internal administration the foremost duty of the executive department is to ensure
law and order in society. It must maintain internal peace and security. For this the executive
relies on the huge number of civil servants and police officials. The executive formulate the
policy and once those policies are approved by legislature it is the responsibilities of the
executive to implement those principles. In simple term, the executive executes. In all political
system public policy is the result of whatever executive want to do. Increasing or decreasing
taxes, reducing or increasing defense budget, giving foreign aids to developing countries,
funding for research and the like are all examples of public policies. All new policies and
programs are initiated by the executive. After the adoption of the policies the executive oversees
their implementation. The different departments and agency are entrusted with specifics
responsibilities and every department execute the laws of the countries which falls under its
jurisdiction. The top executive coordinates the activities of various department and agencies.
The top executive appoints secretaries and other top officials to head various departments.

Functions on external administration are all states are independent, but every state
interrelated with others states. The executive is responsible to ensure mutual interaction among
states for peace and securities. The executive responsibilities lie in the ministry of foreign or
external affairs.

Military functions are one of the essential responsibilities of the executive is to secure
territorial integrity of the state and to protect the country from external aggression, and if
necessary, to wage war. The top executive is the chief of staff in every country of the world.
However, the actual power is exercise by a department under its control, called the department of
defense’s and wars which determined the strength and organization of the arm forces of the
country. The head of the executive appoint the general and commands in the army, navy and air
forces. During the war, the power of the executive increases immensely because the executive
may takes any actions necessary to save guard the security of the country. The executive may
summon the army to protect the interest of the nations.

Next function is judicial functions. The executive function is charges some judicial
function. Usually in most government the executive is required to keep an eye on the
administration of courts and to guarantee it citizen’s fairness and impartiality in justice.
Therefore the head of the executive appoints the judges in most countries. Beside appointing
judges, the executive has two important judicial power which are granting pardons and granting
amnesty. The most important judicial power of the top executive is the power f granting pardon
to a convicted person. The king of Malaysia has this power.
This sometime became necessary to avoid the death of a very important person or a person
maybe politically convicted. This also prevents possible judicial malpractice. Another important
power of the executive in judicial matters is to grant amnesty to a group of person usually
political offenders.
JUDICIARY

The primary of the courts is to ensure administration of justice. Courts are agencies for
the decision of dispute between individual and individual, and citizens and the state. In ordinary
sense it seems that courts do little more than to decide dispute. While giving judgment on cases,
courts do a number of jobs beyond the settlement of disputes. They perform the following
functions.

Establishing facts. The primary functions of the judiciary are to established and
determined facts. When a case comes before the courts it usually remains ambiguous. The
responsibility of the courts is to determine the ‘facts’ in order to deduce the truth. The procedure
is that the conflicting parties bring forward witnesses to produce evidence in support of their
respective contentions. Witnesses present evidences either in writing, orally or both. The courts
formulate a set of rules to govern the parties in producing witnesses and subjecting them to
interrogation. The judges listen to those witnesses and weigh the testimony. Finally based on this
evidences the court determined the fact.

Interpreting laws. The second function of the judiciary is to apply the law to the fact
which have already being found by investigation and then render decision. The judge does not
evaluate the merit of the law related to the case. The task of the judge is to accept the relevant
law to the case as it is and apply it to the ascertained facts. The judge is the integrator of law.

Next function is creating laws. Laws are made to deal with broad issues. But in dealing
with specifics case the existing law may appear to be ambiguous. They may be worded in such a
way that is difficult to determine their exact meaning. Also with changing condition in the
society issues are presented which will not consider when the laws were made. The existing law
may not be consistent with present situation. Under such a situation the court has to decide the
nature, scope and meaning of law. Further more if different laws conflict with each other the
courts have to decide which shall prevail. More importantly it can happen that a particular type
of crime is not fully covered by the existing law at all. Under such circumstances, the courts have
to create a new law. The judges are thus interpreters of law as well as law makers and large
volume of law is made out of ‘judge-made’ laws in many countries.

Upholding the constitutional is one of the function. The judiciary is guardian of the
constitution. Especially in a federal system of a government the constitution delimit the
jurisdiction of various branches and units of a government. The court interprets the constitution.
Neither the government nor the state government can past a law repugnant to be constitution. In
case of conflict between the central and regional governments, the courts decide of the dispute.
Also, the court offers judgment in case of a conflict between the executive and legislature.

Preventing infraction of law. The court performs the function of preventing infraction of
law and the violation of human rights. It is not necessary that parties or persons have to wait their
rights had been actually violated. Citizens can approach the courts for protection before the
actual violation occurs. If such person have reason to believe that attempts will be make to
violate their rights they can appeal to the court and the court will issue orders prohibiting such
attempts until the right is determined. The order so issued is known as ‘restraining orders’ or
‘injunctions’.

Judicial review. In a great majority of democratic countries the courts entrusted with the
power of judicial review. It means that the court has the power to declare any act of the
legislature or of the executive null and void, and consequently, invalid if they are found to be in
conflict with the constitution.