Separation of powers: three questions for judging whether it is working

Separation of powers is the idea that the making of laws, their execution and their interpretation should sit with different bodies, so that no single one can do all three unchecked. Most constitutional systems use some version of it, but the details differ widely, and the label alone tells you little.

Three practical questions help judge whether the separation is real:

1. Independence. Can each branch act without being threatened with removal, defunding or retaliation by the others?

2. Capacity. Does each branch have the staff, information and money to do its job, or is one branch so under-resourced that it cannot check the others?

3. Accountability. When one branch oversteps, is there a clear route, such as a court ruling, a vote or an investigation, to correct it?

Limits: formal rules on paper may differ from practice, and some systems deliberately overlap functions. A system can look balanced in its constitution and be lopsided in reality.

A fair assessment looks at behaviour over time, not only at the text.