Question

Write important features of a federation

Answer 1

Dear Student,
Fedralism has the following characteristics -

a) In a federal state there are two sets of governments, one is called federal or central government, the other is provincial or Unit governments. The union of these two sets of governments makes what is called federation. Each governments is independent of the other in its own jurisdiction. The central and unit governments are constitutionaly equal in status and position.

b) In a federation governmental powers are essentially distributed by the constitution between the Central government on the one hand and the unit government on the other. The details of division vary in different federations. But the principle folllowed in the division is that all are primarily of common intrest and require uniformity of regulation throughout the country such as foreign affairs, defence, currency and coinage are placed under the central government. The rest is left to the Unit governments.

c) Federal system essentially implies the supremacy of constitution. A federal state derives its existance from the constitution; powers of both central and unit governments are delegated by the constitution. Every power whether of central or Unit governments is subordinate to, and controlled by, the constitution. For instance, in the United States, neither the president nor the Congress nor the Governer nor its legislature can legally exercise a single power that is inconsistent with the articles of the constitution. Every legislature existing under a federal constitution is merely a subordinate law-making body, whose laws are valid while within authority conferred on it by the constitution, invalid if they go beyond the limits of such authority.

d) To maintain in practice the supremacy of the constitution every federal state must have a supreme court. It interprets the constitution, decides disputes between center and province or provinces, or between diffrent organs of government. It puts them in check, keeps them within their constitutional limits.

e) The federal constitution being a complicated contract and the supreme law of the land is essentially a written and rigid one.

f)In a federal state there exists some sort of double citizenship and allegiance.This means that a citizen has to show alllegiance both to the provincial and federal governments,

g)The central legislature under federal system is generally found bicameral on tha age old ground that the lower house enshrines the national idea and represents the nation as a whole and the upper house is enshrine federal idea and to represent the units as such.

Regards