2 The Principle of Checks and Balances

Checks and balances is separation's practical correction: since ambition must be made to counteract ambition, each organ is armed with legal weapons against the others' excesses, while remaining unable to govern alone. The standard catalogue:• Legislature checks executive: no-confidence, budget refusal, questions, committees, ratification of appointments/treaties;• Legislature checks judiciary: confirmation of appointments, jurisdiction definition, impeachment of judges, power to amend the constitution (against judicial interpretation);• Executive checks legislature: veto/suspensive veto, dissolution, initiative of money bills, ordinance power, referendum;• Executive checks judiciary: appointment of judges, pardon (mitigating judicial sentences — expressly, e.g., the President's pardon power under Article 276 of Nepal's Constitution), enforcement of judgments;• Judiciary checks both: judicial review — declaring statutes and executive acts unconstitutional/illegal; interpretation as legislation's boundary; contempt powers.The distinction to state clearly: separation of powers divides functions to preventaccumulation; checks and balances re-links the divided organs to prevent abuse ofeach divided share. Separation without checks isolates tyranny in three departments; checks without separation fuse into one — the pair only works together.