Can a monarchy have a tripartite division of authority?

Question

Can a monarchy have a tripartite (legislative, executive, judicial) division of authority*? Viz., can a single person (the monarch) exercise all three of these authorities, or does he need to delegate those tasks to others? In the latter case, is there an ordering among the three branches—viz., does the monarch act as one supreme branch and the other two subjected to it?

---

<sup>*A. Ottaviani, Compendium Iuris Publici Ecclesiastici (1954) defines each of these powers:
1. Legislative: "right of determining in an obligatory manner the things which are necessary and useful for attaining the end of the society" (p. 43)
2. Judicial: "the right of declaring and proposing in an obligatory manner which concrete acts of subjects are conformed or contrary to right, and the legitimate effects of this conformity or contrariety" (p. 49)
3. Executive: "right of enforcing the application of laws and sentences, of directing persons or of disposing of things, and of removing all obstacles which impede the full possession of the social end" (p. 61)</sup>

Answer 1

If you mean an absolute monarchy, then no. Absolute monarchy (which is frequently what is meant when people say, simply 'monarchy') is defined as a single ruler who exists above and outside the law with complete dictatorial power (at least du jure).

Constitutional Monarchy, as another poster observes of the UK, is a much more permissive term.

If you're envisioning a sort of "Three kings - one who makes laws, one who executes them, and one who judges" sort of deal that would be an Oligarchy - which is essentially a monarchy where the 'king' is replaced with a 'small number of individuals.' As with Constitutional Monarchy, Oligarchy is a very flexible and permissive term.

Answer 2

The United Kingdom certainly has this. The Executive is the Cabinet, led by the Prime Minister. The Legislature is Parliament (bi-cameral: House of Commons and House of Lords), and the judiciary is independent of both.

There is a slight mix of the executive and parliament, as the Cabinet is usually composed of Members of Parliament drawn from the majority party, and the Prime Minister is the leader of the majority party. But the division of responsibility is clear: Parliament makes laws, the Cabinet executes them, and the judiciary oversees them.

Parliament is supreme amongst the three, in that it can in theory pass laws to arbitrarily control the other two, but it doesn't need to be.

The monarch reigns, but does not rule. In practice all her powers are delegated to the people in the three branches. In theory she could refuse to sign legislation, but in practice that never happens. Also in theory, she is the commander in chief of the military, so she could order the army to arrest the Prime Minister and declare martial law. In practice that never happens either

Answer 3

In a Constitutional Monarchy the monarch is like a non-executive president in a republic, so the classic tripartite division of authority can exist and, indeed, if it is a Constitutional Monarchy, will almost by definition exist.

It is common to describe monarchs in the Middle Ages as absolute monarchs because they personally had power but in practice life as a king in the Middle Ages was not without its practical limitations. In theory the king can make any law he chooses but if he angers other powerful people within the realm they may attempt to take the crown, or, at least, they may be less eager to come to the king's aid if others attempt to seize the crown, or if the country is attacked from outside. Or he may have difficulty extracting taxes needed to pay for royal expenditure. So a successful king will bring others on board and give them some role in deciding laws.

A successful king also needs professional judges to decide cases according to the law. That is not to say that the king will never intervene in the judicial process but, by and large, the system has to work with some degree of objectivity and independence. Those powerful people who have been given a role in law-making must believe that, by an large, their laws have effect. In order to avoid civil unrest the populace in general has to believe that obeying the law is better than disobeying it which requires some effective system to determine with some degree of objectivity whether a particular person has broken the law or not.

So, in practice, European kings in the Middle Ages did have parliaments (to make laws) and professional judges sitting in courts of law, so there was a tripartite division of authority even if not as perfect as in a Constitutional Monarchy.

A further factor, in the Middle Ages, was the Church. The Pope had quite a lot of influence and power and, in fact, it was sometimes the case that the Lord Chancellor in England was more powerful than the king. This was because the Lord Chancellor was often also the Papal Legate and so was not just dependant on the authority he had from the king. And the Lord Chancellor had important roles in the administration of justice and presided in the upper house of the legislature.

According to Wikipedia:

The lord chancellor's judicial duties also evolved through his role in the curia regis. Petitions for justice were normally addressed to the king and the curia, but in 1280, Edward I instructed his justices to examine and deal with petitions themselves as the Court of King's Bench. Important petitions were to be sent to the lord chancellor for his decision; the more significant of these were also to be brought to the king's attention. By the reign of Edward III, this chancellery function developed into a separate tribunal for the lord chancellor. In this body, which became known as the High Court of Chancery, the lord chancellor would determine cases according to fairness (or "equity") instead of according to the strict principles of common law. The lord chancellor also became known as the "keeper of the king's conscience".