§ 41 The Government of the State
Political or civil power is the power vested in any person or body of persons of exercising any function of the state. It is the capacity of evoking and directing the activities of the body politic. It is the ability to make one’s will effective in any department of governmental action. The aggregate of all the persons or groups of persons who possess any share of this civil power constitutes the Government of the state. They are the agents through whom the state, as a corporate unity, acts and moves and fulfils its end.
Legislative, judicial, and executive power.—In respect of its subject-matter, civil power is of three kinds, distinguished as legislative, judicial, and executive; and the government is similarly divisible into three great departments, namely, the legislature, the judicature, and the executive. The functions which pertain to the first and second of these departments have been already sufficiently explained. The executive is simply the residue of the government, after deducting the legislature and the judicature.
Sovereign and subordinate power.—In respect of its extent civil power, whether legislative, judicial, or executive, is of two kinds, being either sovereign or subordinate. Sovereign or supreme power is that which is absolute and uncontrolled within its own sphere. Within its appointed limits, if any, its exercise and effective operation are not dependent on or subject to the power of any other person. An act of sovereign power is one which cannot be prevented or annulled by any other power recognised by the constitution of the state. Subordinate power, on the other hand, is that which, even in its own sphere of operation, is in some degree subject to external control. There exists some other constitutional power which is superior to it, and which can prevent, restrict, or direct its exercise, or annul its operation.105