The law, politics and the judicial process

Abstract

As we have seen (Chapter 11), the main functions or powers of the state are classified as legislative, executive and judicial. Thus the state is involved in law making (Chapter 14), executing the law through its ministers and public officials (Chapters 12 and 13), and adjudicating on the law when disputes arise between private citizens, or between the state and its citizens (this chapter). While some political theorists argued that these functions and the personnel exercising these functions should be kept strictly separate, and this separation of powers has been enforced as far as practicable in some constitutions (notably the US Constitution), this has not been the case in Britain. Yet if there is no clear separation of powers in the British system of government, the legal and judicial system is often considered to lie somehow outside and beyond politics.