"Checks and balances reflections on the development of the doctrine of separation of powers under the South African constitution"

completely that the government is unable to take timely measures in the public interest. 4 The focus of my talk this evening is to consider how far we have progressed in this task of developing a distinctively South African model of the separation of powers, but before I turn to that I would like to start with a brief historical overview of the doctrine itself. A. The development of the doctrine of the separation of powers and its underlying purposeWriting in the mid-eighteenth century, Montesquieu famously asserted the importance of the separation of powers in a democracy as follows:When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because many apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.