The principle of separation of power proposes that in order to ensure good governance, executive, legislative and judicial powers should be exercised by different individuals or different groups of people. If, for instance, judges made laws, interpreted them and punished the offenders, they would become too powerful and probably misuse the power against their opponents. These powers are, therefore, supposed to be separated in such a manner that those in the legislature should not at the same time be in the executive, and those in the executive and the legislature should not at the same time be in the judiciary.
FUSION OF POWER.
In Zambia, there is no strict separation of power between the Executive and the Legislature. There is, instead, fusion of power. Cabinet ministers, as members of the Executive, are at the same time members of the Legislature. The president, by appending his assent to bills before they become law, remotely connects himself to the Legislature. He can send back to the National Assembly any bill he thinks requires further attention. There is also fusion of power between the Executive and the Judiciary. .
For instance, the President, the Chief Executive, appoints all High Court and Supreme Court judges, and using his powers of the Prerogative of Mercy, he can change the verdicts passed by courts of law. He can, for instance, commute death sentences to life imprisonment, reduce a long sentence to a shorter period of stay in prison, or completely pardon the convicted prisoner, depending on the merits of the case, as advised by the Ad-Hoc Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy. .
There is, however, some separation of power between the Legislature and the Judiciary. No member of the National Assembly, even those holding qualifications in law, can at the same time be bench sitting members of the judiciary, and no cabinet minister with legal back ground can at the same time be a member of the judiciary.
