The balance of power between the Executive and Legislative branches Essay

The balance of power between the Executive and Legislative branches has tipped in favour of a dominant Executive with negative c - Essay Example This means that no single arm of government should control the other two arms. However, this is not the case as seen in the study of the political system of Russia, United States of America and France, (Fitjar, 2010) Russia Russia emerged after the breakup of the United Social Soviet republic. It is made up of eighty nine republics and other jurisdictions. Russia’s political system is different from that of the United States of America and France. This is because the constitution, which was adopted in 1993 provided that Russia be governed by the three arms of government. However, the constitution did not give equal powers to all the arms of government. For example, the president is both the commander in chief of the armed forces and the chair to the Security Council. Vladimir Putin is said to have used this power to strengthen his office. The executive arm of the Russian government is comprises the prime minister, other cabinet ministers and the attorney general, (White, 2005) . The prime minister is appointed by the president and is the chair of the constitutional court which is the highest court in Russia. He is also the head of the Central Bank of Russia. Russia’s legislature is made up of two houses. The first house is the Federation council which is made up of 180 members who serve four years terms. The other house is the state Duma which is comprised of 450 members who also serve terms of four years. Both houses have different responsibilities. The State Duma has more powers than the Federal council which is viewed as a reviewing and consultation body. One important role of the legislature is to check and control the executive by making sure that transparency is observed in the operations of the government. However, in Russia the executive has dominated over the executive resulting in various consequences. The executive in Russia has dominated over the legislature in many ways. The president of Russia is allowed to appoint top government offi cials without consultation with the legislature. However, this is with the exception with the appointment of the prime minister where the lower house of the legislature should confirm the nominee for the position of prime minister. Despite this being the case, the president has the power to dissolve the lower house if they do not confirm a nominee to be the prime minister three times consecutively. This has resulted in the lower house accepting nominees for prime ministers since it faces the risk of dissolution if the nominees are not passed. It is said that it is through this that presidents like Vladimir Putin have taken advantage of this political system to empire their offices so that the government can be dominated by them. Another way that the executive in Russia destabilizes the balance of the executive and the legislature is by making sure they can control the federal council. The president does this by changing the process of ex official membership into presidential appoint ment. For example, in the year 2000 President Vladimir Putin replaced ex official members with those he appointed. This made sure he could influence decisions by the Federal Council in accordance with policies of the executive. Even though, the State Duma can pass a vote of no confidence for the government, the president has the powers to ignore the vote and even dissolve the house if they take another vote within the period of three months. United States of America The