The Founding Fathers created a democracy because they had experienced what a monarchy was like and did not want that in their country. When writing the Constitution, they had to create a type of checks and balances to ensure that one person would not have all of the power. The benefits of creating three branches of government in our country is that no one branch will have more power over the other.
According to Pros and Cons of Checks and Balances, "Article I of the Constitution establishes a legislative branch that is responsible for making laws, coining currency, and declaring war, among other things. Article II creates an executive branch led by the president of the United States that enforces laws. According to Article III, it is up to the judicial branch, which is comprised of a nine-justice Supreme Court and other federal courts, to interpret laws and determine how they apply to individual situations." This explains that these branches of government create a series of checks and balances so one branch does not have more power than another. For example, if the president of the United States of America vetoes a bill, Congress can vote to override the veto. If that vote gets over two thirds of the votes in Congress, then Congress can override the veto, called the Congressional Veto Override.
OTHER WINNERS: Division I | Division III
The benefits of assigning different powers to different branches is that no one branch will have more power over the others, and our government will not turn into a foreign government like a dictatorship. For example, Saudi Arabia has an absolute monarchy. An absolute monarchy is when one person is head of the state and their powers are endless. According to The Siege of Eastern Ghouta, Syria, "Saudi Arabia's courts continue to impose sentences of flogging as punishment for many offences, often following unfair trials." Our government would not allow this to happen because our three branches of government would split the power evenly. Therefore, everyone would have a right to a fair trial and no one would get flogged.
Finally, there are many reasons to create three branches of government or a series of checks and balances, but there are reasons not to create three branches of government. First, this process to tum a bill into a law is extremely long and time consuming. According to Northern Ireland Assembly Educational Service, most bills can take up to five months to become a law. But in rare circumstances a bill can only take up to 10 days by skipping the committee stage. If I were to rewrite the Constitution, I would change the fact that a bill usually takes up to five months become a law.
To conclude, the United States of America has three branches of government that are used to control the power of each branch of government. Without these three branches, our government wouldn't be any different than other governments.
First Published May 13, 2018, 1:15 p.m.
