Separated powers were and remain an inventive device for achieving important democratic values in presidential systems. These values include thwarting the rise of government tyranny, preventing the arbitrary exercise of government power, and promoting the efficient administration of the state. But these core values of democracy are likewise achievable, albeit in varying degrees, in parliamentary systems. Whether those parliamentary systems separate powers in an unconventional fashion, as in British parliamentarism, or in a juricentric fashion typical of constrained parliamentary systems or between two independent executives as in semipresidential systems, the three democratic values discussed throughout may indeed be achievable, thoughrnperhaps not in all circumstances. This is a profound point because it suggests that the democratic and structural advantages of separated powers are not inherently exclusive to presidential systems but are also attainable in parliamentary systems as well. It is even more important because it leads to new possibilities for constitutional design.
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