#separationofpower

Starting week 3, I decided to write a separate analysis post reflecting on the Lab for each week. This was mainly because I felt my “Lab” posts ended up being just notes taken during the lab with only a little analysis. 

This week, the main topic that was discussed in the lab was “Separation of Power”. In the lectures earlier in the week, Richard had us think about  the separation of power that already exists around us such as law enforcement,  unbiased judicial force, splitting senate and house of representatives etc. This made me aware of the separation of power that already exists among us and how it plays a crucial role in many aspects of our everyday life such as within the government, at the workplace and even within households. It could also be interpreted as having different layers of security. 

Another aspect associated with separation of power is “Work Ratio”. This means that we want to make the good guys do the easy or little work while making the bad guys work harder. This leads us to also consider reward vs. penetration when reviewing the work. 

This idea of separation of power was further explored when looking into the case study “Doors” in this week’s lab analysis session. The case study was a collection of articles on the topic of doors being deliberately or otherwise being locked on airplanes. The analysis questions asked to recommend actions to be taken so that the incident doesn’t happen again. This task really had us understand the difficulty of finding the balance between making it easy for the pilots and crew and hard for hijackers. The main ideas we discussed included splitting power, which we decided was a good idea but bad if one person is evil, and automation, which we concluded could have errors like in the recent Boeing  737 sensor failures.

What is the separation of power?

As the name has inferred, separation of power is decentralizing the power to make share no one can have the absolute power to control the whole system.

Why do we need separation of power?

The basic reason is: we don’t trust others. And so we need separation of power as a method to avoid the single point of failure, making sure that one thing goes wrong, it’s not gonna be a huge problem.

How did the Romans and Greeks implement the separation of powers?

Greeks: 

The Greeks let all the male citizens (over 18) participate in the discussion of all events, no matter big or small. There were no written laws at that time, everything was according to the convention. 

Romans: 

The Romans had Senate and Tribune, where the Senate was a political institution in ancient Rome consists of Patres, and Tribune was a few people selected from the mass to protect the rights of the people. Everything was decided by the Senate, but the things related to the normal citizen will further be assessed by the Tribune, and Tribune has the right to against the decision made by the Senate. At that time, written laws were created, known as “Law of the Twelve Tables”, and it was made by the Senate.

Comparison:

- Greeks: Is said to be the most democratic system in human history (though I think it was populism), and the country was small, so almost everyone can be engaged in the decision process.