WASSCE SHS
The legislature makes law. The executive applies it. The judiciary interprets it and settles disputes. Separation of powers is the attempt to stop one person or one body doing all three.
In Ghana, Parliament is the legislature. It passes bills, which become acts when the President assents, and it oversees the executive through questions and committees. The executive is the President, the ministers and the public service that carries policy out. The judiciary is the courts, headed in structure by the Chief Justice, independent in the decision of cases. A fusion can exist in practice: ministers sit in parliament in many systems, including Ghana. Separation is therefore not a wall with no doors. It is a set of checks.
The point of the checks is liberty and competence. The people who make a harsh law should not be the only people who judge a citizen under it. The people who judge should not also write the budget. Checks include assent to bills, judicial review of acts that conflict with the constitution, and the legislature's power to scrutinise spending. An answer that says "to avoid dictatorship" needs one concrete check, or it stays a slogan.
Match the arm to the function. Parliament does not sentence offenders. Courts do not pass the annual budget as the legislature does. If you mention fusion, do not then claim the powers never overlap. In a presidential system the president is not a member of the legislature in the way a prime minister in a parliamentary system is. Ghana's president is elected separately and appoints ministers, a number of whom come from parliament. Stay inside what you can say accurately. The functions themselves are the safe marks.
These are practice questions in the style of the paper, with a model answer and a mark scheme. They are not a promise of what your paper will ask.
3 marks
State the primary function of the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. (3 marks)
The legislature makes laws. The executive implements laws and policy. The judiciary interprets the law and adjudicates disputes.
4 marks
Explain two checks, one arm on another. (4 marks)
The legislature checks the executive by questioning ministers and examining spending. The judiciary checks both by declaring an act or an action void when it conflicts with the constitution.
2 marks
Why is a complete separation, with no person belonging to more than one arm, rare in practice? (2 marks)
Government has to work as one system. Ministers may sit in the legislature so that policy can be proposed and defended there. The check is independence of judgment, not a total absence of contact.
More questions on this topic are inside GLearn, marked as you answer, with the reason written out. The first ones need no account.
Practise Government freeThe legislature makes law. In Ghana that is Parliament. The executive, led by the President, carries law and policy out. The judiciary, the courts, interprets the law and decides disputes. Each is meant to check the others.
To stop the same hands making the law, applying it and judging citizens under it. The protection is the set of checks, such as assent, scrutiny of spending, and a court that can hold an act up against the constitution. All WASSCE Government past questions