Editing Legislature (section)

==Relation to other branches of government==
Legislatures vary widely in the amount of [[Politics|political]] [[Power (social and political)|power]] they wield, compared to other political players such as [[Judiciary|judiciaries]], [[Military|militaries]], and [[Executive (government)|executives]]. In 2009, political scientists [[Steven Fish|M. Steven Fish]] and [[Matthew Kroenig]] constructed a Parliamentary powers index in an attempt to quantify the different degrees of power among national legislatures. The German [[Bundestag]], the [[Italian Parliament]], and the Mongolian [[State Great Khural]] tied for most powerful, while Myanmar's [[House of Representatives (Myanmar)|House of Representatives]] and Somalia's [[Transitional Federal Parliament|Transitional Federal Assembly]] (since replaced by the [[Federal Parliament of Somalia]]) tied for least powerful.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The handbook of national legislatures: a global survey|last1=Fish|first1=M. Steven|last2=Kroenig|first2=Matthew|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|year=2009|isbn=978-0-521-51466-8}}</ref>

Some political systems follows the principle of [[legislative supremacy]], which holds that the legislature is the supreme branch of government and cannot be bound by other institutions, such as the judicial branch or a written [[constitution]]. Such a system renders the legislature more powerful.

In [[parliamentary system|parliamentary]] and [[semi-presidential system|semi-presidential]] systems of [[government]], the [[Executive branch|executive]] is responsible to the legislature, which may remove it with a [[Motion of no confidence|vote of no confidence]]. On the other hand, according to the [[separation of powers]] doctrine, the legislature in a [[presidential system]] is considered an independent and coequal branch of government along with both the [[Judicial branch|judiciary]] and the executive.<ref>{{cite web|title=Governing Systems and Executive-Legislative Relations (Presidential, Parliamentary and Hybrid Systems) |publisher=United Nations Development Programme |url=http://www.undp.org/governance/docs/Parl-Pub-govern.htm |access-date=16 October 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081017164441/http://www.undp.org/governance/docs/Parl-Pub-govern.htm |archive-date=17 October 2008 }}</ref> Nevertheless, many presidential systems provide for the [[impeachment]] of the executive for criminal or unconstitutional behaviour.

Legislatures will sometimes delegate their legislative power to [[Administrative agency|administrative]] or [[Executive agency|executive agencies]].<ref name="Schoenbrod">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Schoenbrod |first= David |author-link=David Schoenbrod | editor-first=Ronald |editor-last=Hamowy |editor-link=Ronald Hamowy |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism |chapter= Delegation  |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC  |year=2008 |publisher= [[SAGE Publishing|SAGE]]; [[Cato Institute]] |location= Thousand Oaks, CA |doi=10.4135/9781412965811.n74 |isbn= 978-1-4129-6580-4 |oclc=750831024| lccn = 2008009151 |pages= 117–18 }}</ref>