...The constitution of the United States has three articles that explain the how powers are separated as well as checks and balances among the branches of the federal government. The federal government consists of three main branches that have separate powers. The three branches of the federal government include; the judiciary, the executive as well as the legislature. Among the three branches, each one of them is tasked with independent as well as separate functions and mandate. Among the three main branches of the federal government, there is none of them which can assume the functions of another. The separation of powers provides specific functions for each branch. The legislature which consists of the congress makes the laws for the nation, the executive that consists of the president implements the laws while the judiciary that entails the court system interprets and defines legal conflicts (Peterson 89). There is none of the three branches which can assume the functions of another. However, the three branches of the federal government are interrelated. They collaboratively work with each other hence checks and balances for the federal government. The checks and balances ensure that there is no single arm of the government that attempts to assume too much power (Peterson 78). Under the checks and balances for the federal government, the functions of one arm of the federal government are used as to control as well as modify the powers of the others. For instance, the President...
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...State and Local Government Dr. U 2.2 State Constitutions: An Overview All state constitutions have a bill of rights, which are written protections for basic freedoms that mostly reflects the United States Constitution. The basic freedoms being the freedom of speech, religion, and the right to assemble. The right to bear arms is one of the rights discussed in the passage referring to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut. On December 14, 2012 a gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed at total of 20 children and six adults. Many states include provisions that guarantee the right to bear arms. Other states hold that right for people to bear arms in self-defense. The Supreme Court resolved the meaning of the second amendment in two important cases in 2008 and 2010. The District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court held that “The second amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use that firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.” In McDonald v. Chicago (2010), a case challenging Chicago’s complete ban on handguns. The court held that “that the Framers and ratifiers o the fourteenth Amendment counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty. But the opinion also stated the second amendment right is not unlimited. Following that the state of New York acts quickly and the...
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...Branches of Government Branches of Government The United States of America is run by our country’s Constitution. After the American Revolution, the newly named Americans realized the need for government and law. Our Constitution, once put into place, establishes three branches of government. It is important for all of Americans to understand why the founding fathers decided on three branches of government. It is also important to know what obstacles the division of power present for enactment of important legislation and how conflict has been characterized between supporters of a strong federal government and the supporters of state rights both in the past and now. The U.S. Constitution was written in 1787 by James Madison. This is considered the main law of the land. Any laws made for the country must agree with the Constitution. James Madison is the father of the constitution. Madison was the one that came up with the conspire that one branch could not have complete control. “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether on or a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-pronounced to very definition of tranny” (Spaeth & Segal 1999). This is when our three branches were born. In the Executive Branch we have our President, vice president, and all of the cabinet. Our president is allowed to make or laws, pass, or veto them. The legislative Branch has 435 representatives and 100 senators forming a party of 535 members...
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...Essay on The Dangers of Democracy In a democratic political system, the ultimate power is before a body of citizens who has the power to elect their representatives. At one point, James Madison described American democracy, in comparison to that of Athens, as “lies in the entirety segregation of the people in their collective capacity.” Thus, Madison feared that common factions turn tyrannical, hence threatening liberty. On the other hand, Centinel argued that the government should not be taken away from the people, as this lead to oppressive to their liberty as well as unresponsive to their needs. According to my viewpoint, I concur with Madison that too much democracy is dangerous. Thus, there is need to control the degree of democracy in political governance. The paper will be focusing on evaluating why too much democracy can be dangerous, and the precautions that should be undertaken to respond to the primary danger without falling to the other dangerous tendency. Democratic form of government accords people an added advantage as it incorporates their ideas into the system of governance. However, despite this advantage, foolish notions can seize it (Kishore 1-5). Any organization in which democracy rules i.e. Majority of members or citizens can pass rules and laws, which suit them, without considering other group members who must adapt to the laws and rules they enact. Judgment is crucial in distinguishing laws, which are reasonable and sensible, from those that are undemocratic...
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...LAW 443 ADMINISTRATIVE LAW I NATIONAL OPEN UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA SCHOOL OF LAW COURSE CODE: Law 443 COURSE TITLE: Administrative Law I 1 LAW 443 ADMINISTRATIVE LAW I Course Code: Course Title: Course Developer/Writer: Administrative Law I Law 443 Simeon Igbinedion, LL.B., LL.M., B.L., PH.D., Faculty of Law, University of Lagos. Professor Animi Awah Ifidon Oyakhiromen, LL.B, LLM, M.Phil, Ph.D, BL Course Editor: AG. Dean,/Programme Leader: Course Coordinator: Mr. Ayodeji ige, LLM, BL 2 LAW 443 ADMINISTRATIVE LAW I COURSE GUIDE CONTENTS PAGE Introduction ……………………………………………………………………….. 1 What You Will Learn in this Course …………………………………………….... 2 Course Aims ………………………………………………………………………. 3 Course Objectives ………………………………………………………………… 3 Study Units ……………………………………………………………………….. 3-4 Tutor-marked Assignment ……………………………………………………....... 4 References/Further Reading ……………………………………………...……. 4 3 LAW 443 ADMINISTRATIVE LAW I Introduction Consider a situation where your residential property in which you have lived for decades has been demolished by the authorities of the FCT, or the Lagos State Ministry of Environment for allegedly being located in an industrial area. Suppose some customs officers at a checkpoint found you in possession of items which they claim to be contraband and, therefore, seized pursuant to the new Customs policy of zero-tolerance of goods likely to endanger the economic growth or contribute to the...
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...Running Head: THE MAINLEVELS OF THE U.S. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT The Main Levels of the U.S. Federal Government Lynn Todd Colorado Technical University Online PBAD200-0904A-13 American Government Professor Jamie Boyd October 12, 2009 The U.S. Government is composed up of three key branches, the Executive Branch, the Legislative Branch, and the Judicial Branch. Each branch has its own powers, functions, checks, and balances. First, we will look at the history of the Constitution. During the 1600’s many Europeans left Britain in search of economic, political, and intellectual freedoms. However, they remained under the power of Britain, which functioned under a unitary system of government with one national power that permitted it to take action against any individual. During the Revolutionary war, the states battled with Britain, and won their freedom from the unitary system of government of Britain (CTU online, 2008, phase 1 multimedia presentation)....
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...Despite the doctrine of separation of powers, the three arms of government in Australia and in many other democracies are not strictly separate because: Members of the executive are also members of the legislature. Chapter 1, 'Australian legal system'. Executive members are drawn from elected members of Parliament (the legislature) to form the administrative arm of the Government. Which of the following categories of law will apply if Johnny is accused of breaching copyright? Intellectual property law. Chapter 1, 'Law and life'. Intellectual Property Law protects copyright by recognising the right to copy an original work that belongs to the author. According to the doctrine of responsible government: The Executive Council is comprised of elected representatives who are also members of the legislature. Chapter 1, 'The Australian legal system'. The Executive branch of government is also a member of Parliament and so are answerable to the citizens who elected them. Double jeopardy is the legal principle that states that: A person should not be tried more than once for the same crime. Chapter 1, 'The nature of law'. The law is designed to prevent the misuse of power. The notion of egalitarianism is: The idea that resources should be shared equally within a community. Chapter 1, 'Justice, ethics and politics'. Egalitarianism refers to equality of opportunity or equality of outcome. According to relativism: Ethical rules are universal and unchanging. Chapter...
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...and striking contrasts that are between the general population and monarchies to help his argument. To illustrate, he first shows the separation of people from when he states how there is “the distinction of men into KINGS and SUBJECTS” (Paine 9). Many of the American citizens...
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...Greatest Constitution and Government Formed George Washington Political Science 201 Professor X August 24, 2012 Introduction The Greatest Constitution and Democracy on earth, these are my heartfelt feelings concerning the country that I live in. Why do I feel this way, because of the freedoms that we naturally have as citizens of the United State. Freedoms that are sometimes ignorantly ignored by the average citizen instead of being cherished and utilized. U.S. citizens have rights thanks to the original Bill of Rights, for example the right to free speech and the right to bear arms. The framers of the U.S. Constitution which is the basic structure of the American system of government. The U.S. Constitution is a written constitution, "it is the world's oldest written constitution still in force, drawn up in 1787, ratified in 1788 and inaugurated in 1789" (Powell, 2015, p. 687). Our constitution was developed to be a working document, meaning the framers created a document that can be edited and corrected through the political processes put in place that merit changing or amending by using our three branches of government, the executive, legislative and judicial. The Constitution The U.S. Constitution has several strengths and weaknesses that definitely make for it to be the keystone of our political system and the pillar for democracies throughout the world. A major strength to our Constitution is that it makes for a strong Central government with checks and balances...
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...delineates the national frame of government. Its first three articles entrench the doctrine of the separation of powers, whereby the federal government is divided into three branches: the legislative, consisting of the bicameral Congress; the executive, consisting of the President; and the judiciary, consisting of the Supreme Court and other federal courts. Since the Constitution came into force in 1789, it has been amended twenty-seven times. In general, the first ten amendments, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, offer specific protections of individual liberty and justice and place restrictions on the powers of government. The majority of the seventeen later amendments expand individual civil rights. At seven articles and twenty-seven amendments, it is the shortest written constitution in force. The Constitution of the United States was the first constitution of its kind, and has influenced the constitutions of other nations. However, it has many flaws, firstly the amendment process is too difficult, thereby making it near impossible to change it. Secondly the power of judicial review gives the unelected unaccountable Supreme Court too much power. Thirdly the constitution leads to gridlock and finally some parts make no sense in modern society and don’t work as the Framers intended. Nevertheless there are positives; primarily that Federalism has proved to be an excellent compromise between strong national government and state government diversity. The demanding amendment...
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...educational objectives, cultural objectives, international relations, and duties of citizens. The main issue that relates to the directive principles is their constitutional status; whether they are justiciable or not justiciable and this is applicable to both Ghana and Nigeria. A policy is a guide to the achievement of an objective. By constitutional policy, we mean the principles and objectives set out in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999 (CFRN 1999) which act as a guide to achieving governmental objectives. A government without a guide is like an aircraft without a compass. In the words of Oguntade (JSC), the Constitution is the very foundation and structure upon which the existence of all organs of governance is hinged[2]. The arms of government have a valid constitutional legitimacy when they are not only recognised by a constitution but are duly regulated by the constitution in terms of the structure, scope of their powers and matters...
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...Judicial restraint enables the judge to respect the rule of law and restrain from creating new law in the course of his or her judgment. Additionally, it allows for the separation of powers between the judiciary arm of government and other two remaining arms (Schmidhauser, 2013). The Canadian judges observe restraints to the law regarding instances of individual rights. The Constitution is anchored on the basic understanding of fundamental human rights. Individual human rights refer to those that are inherently attributed to people by virtue of being human. An example of judicial restraint by Canadian judges relates to the Supreme Court ruling on the bestiality case. The judges used the available law, which was constitutional despite its failure to realize justice to the victim. However, in restraining the judges observed that the meaning of the bestiality law favored the animal more than man and as such, they could not twist the wording to alter the meaning of bestiality law to secure a conviction of the man. It should be of paramount that the existence of lacunas do not render a law illegal but only provide a mechanism for future amendments (King et al.,...
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...what is the Constitution known today. The U.S. Constitution took effect in 1788. The Constitution shifted a lot of decisions, laws, and military authorization from the state level to the federal level, thus making every state have similarities. There were many simulations and differences between the two doctrines that ruled America. However there were more differences between the two then there are similarities. The major similarities between the two was that they were both written by the same people, just at different times. Both doctrines state that one state cannot enter into war by itself, the central government is in charge of the value of the money, term limits to the...
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...Do Judges Make Law? A law is an obligatory rule of conduct imposed and enforced by the sovereign. Therefore the law is the body of principles recognized and enforced by the state in the application of justice. The law is mainly made by a parliament, a legislative body given power by the constitution to draft law. However in the last few decades there has been a notion that judges make law. A judge is a public official appointed or elected to hear and decide legal matters in court, Judges exercise judicial power. This involves making binding decisions affecting the rights and duties of citizens and institutions. In carrying out this task, a judge can use any of the following three sources of Ugandan law, Acts of Parliament or legislation, the common law, or previous decisions by the courts and a constitution Do judges make law? To ask the question “do judges make law?” Implies that perhaps to some extent they do make law. A great deal of controversy has centered on this question as to how far judges can legitimately make law although a great number such as lord Bentham have referred to it as a “childish fiction” thus judges cannot make law. Many other scholars more so those that are followers of the realist school of thought have placed absolute emphasis on the discretion of judges and relegated the "rules" to an obscure position. It can however not be denied looking closely at the present legal system that judges have played a dominant role in moulding the doctrines of the...
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...The tenth and fourteenth amendments were both established to limit the government and upgrade the lives of all citizens. The due process clause incorporated in the 14th amendment focuses on the rights of the citizens and the government. Its purpose was to protect economic freedoms; it was probably one of the more controversial amendments in the constitution. However, the tenth amendment confines what powers the federal government can give. The division between both amendments come on he views of federalism. The first section of the fourteenth amendment consists of the citizenship, due process, equal protection, and the immunities clauses. The fifth section of the fourteenth amendment bequeaths the authority of the Congress to legislatively...
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