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powers discussed in the next section but also between both houses of a bicameral
legislature. These checks and balances ultimately protect the smaller states against
the larger states, ensuring equal representation or, in other words, the integrity of
the federation. The concept of a bicameral legislature is effective in almost all the
federations in the world, however, in
some countries such as the UK, the upper
house serves a different purpose and is not the bicameral legislature envisaged by
this thesis or by Montesquieu.
The USA has been through this phase of disparity, which is explored in much more
detail in Chapter 5 but can be summarised here as being the result of the earlier
governments of the USA being unicameral bodies. This issue was addressed in the
revised constitution which provided for a bicameral congress,
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and through the
Connecticut Compromise, whereby members for the upper house were also to be
directly elected by the people of that federating unit.
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The
USA therefore
incorporated the system of equal representation,
a feature that is, as shown in
Chapter 5, missing in Pakistan's political system.
The researcher agrees with Montesquieu that the legislature should comprise two
houses, because each of these houses can prevent inappropriate acts of the other.
Montesquieu argues for confederal merger of small and large states within a country
equally.
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The merger provides advantages to smaller states such as democratic
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