liberty, it was Montesquieu who first saw the light. He was the first among the political philosophers who saw the necessity of separating judicial power from the executive and legislative branches of Government. Montesquieu was the first to conceive of the three functions of Government as exercised by three organs, each juxtaposed against others. He realised that the efficient operation of Government involved a certain degree of overlapping and that the theory of checks and balances required each organ to impede too great an aggrandizement of authority by the other two powers. As Holdsworth says, Montesquieu convinced the world that he had discovered a new constitutional principle which was universally valid. The doctrine of separation of Governmental powers is not a mere theoretical, philosophical concept. It is a practical, work-a-day principle. The division of Government into three branches does not imply, as its critics would have us think, three water-tight compartments. Thus, legislative impeachment of executive officers or judges executive veto over legislation judicial review of administrative or legislative actions are treated as partial exceptions which need explanation.* 321. There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person or body of magistrates, or, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers. Jefferson said. All powers of Government – legislative executive and judicial – result in the legislative body. The concentration of these powers in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic Government. It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands and not by a single person. One hundred and seventy three despots would surely be as oppressive as one. See Jefferson Works: 3: 223. And, Montesquieu's own words would show that where the whole power of one department is exercised by the same hands which possess the whole power of another department, the fundamental principles of a free constitution are subverted. In Federalist No. 47, James Madison suggests that Montesquieu's doctrine did not mean that separate departments might have “no partial agency in or no control over the acts of each other.” His meaning was, according to Madison, no more than that one department should not possess the whole power of another. 322. The Judiciary, said the Federalist, is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power. It has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society and can take no active resolution what-ever. It may truly be said to have neither force nor will, but merely judgment. Of the three powers Montesquieu said, the judiciary is in some measure next to nothing. If he realised the relative weakness of the judiciary at the time he wrote, it is evidence of his vision that he appreciated the supreme importance of its independence. There is no liberty he said, if the judicial power be not separated from the legislative and executive. 323. But this doctrine which is directed against the concentration of these powers in the same hand has no application as such when the question is whether an amending body can exercise judicial power. In other words, the doctrine is directed against the concentration of these sovereign powers in