Course Title: Government and Sociology
Course Code : Hum-2141
Id : 20192006010
Name : Md. Gazi Sohanur
Rahman
Presentation on:
Organs of Government
Introduction of Organs of Government:
Government is process of governing. It is the use of power derived from the law that is approve
by the legislature. It is means, methods, manners, or system of governing society and
organization. Government is one of the most essential attributes of a state. We cannot have a
clear idea about a sate without it. Burke has said “Government is one of the inventions of human
knowledge through which the human being fulfill his desires”. There are three organs of
Government:
1. Legislature
2. Executives
3. Judiciary.
These three organs of the government are closely related to one another, because legislature
makes the law, the executive implements them and the judiciary interprets them. The three main
branches/organs of government are the legislative, executive, and judiciary. Very simply, the
legislative branch makes the laws, the executive enforces the laws, and the judiciary interprets
the laws. Many countries today practice some form of this system of government, particularly the
United States. Here, the three organs exist as a system of checks and balances to ensure that no
one branch exceeds the others in power.
All of these are described below:
The Legislature:
The legislature or parliament is a unique institution and, probably, the symbol of democracy.
‘Legislatures are set up to represent the people and play central roles in constitutional democracy
(Oko, 2012: 2)’. ‘The legislature, which represents the people and acts as their agent, is therefore
at the core of the Western democratic tradition (Ornstein, 1992)’. They evolve and develop
internally in reaction to the broader political environment (Forgette, 1997). Through the
legislature, the citizens of the nation express their wishes. Consequently, this organ of
government is in – dissociable from liberal democracies as they are constructed around it (Okoosi-
Simbine, 2010:1).
In any democracy, the legislature is the watchdog over other organs of government and the
society. Nwabueze (2007) opines:
the Legislature is the distinctive mark of a country’s sovereignty, the index of its status as a state
and the source of much of the power exercised by the executive in the administration of
government. The sovereign power of the state is therefore identified in the organ that has the
power to make laws by Legislation, and to issue “commands” in the form of Legislation binding on
the community.
The Executive:
The Executive is an ubiquitous feature of the political system world over (Roberts, 2002:6). It is
the second, but the most powerful organ of the government. The Executive implements the laws
passed by the legislature and the policies of the government. In common usage, it could be
identified as the government. In contemporary times, there has taken place a big increase in the
power and role of the executive in every state.
The term ‘Executive’ has been defined both in its broad and narrow forms. In a broad sense, it is
a symbolism of all the functionaries, political power-holders (Political Executive) and the
bureaucracy (permanent civil or some public servants) who implement the laws and policies and
run the administration of the State. The executive organ is the aggregate of all the functionaries
and agencies which are concerned with the implementation of the will of the State as that will
have been formulated and expressed in terms of law. In its broadest sense, the executive
department consists of all government officials except those acting in legislative or judicial
capacity. It includes all the agencies of government that are concerned with the execution of
states will as expressed in terms of law.
The Judiciary:
The word “judiciary”, has a Latin origin and has been variously defined. According to the Oxford
Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, “Judiciary” is “usually the judges of a country or a state, when
they are considered as a group”. Given the fact that the judiciary is a legal institution, it is
imperative not to limit ourselves with and the ordinary definition but further define it from a
legal dictionary. Thus, the Black’s Law Dictionary defines the term judiciary as ‘the branch of
government responsible for interpreting the laws and administering justice. ‘A system of courts,
a body of judges.’
The most important function of the Judiciary is rule adjudication, which is distinct from the two
governmental functions of rulemaking and rule application performed by the Legislature and
Executives respectively. It is instructive to note that the judiciary is bigger than any single
individual; it is an institution of government and the last hope of the common man. Section 6 of
the Constitution of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) vests the judicial powers of the Federation in the
courts established by the Constitution.
