ABSTRACT
In a working political system, a strong relationship must exist between the authority that promulgates law, the judicial system that dispenses justice in the form of rulings or in the setting of public normative standards in interpreting the law, and the security authorities that must both uphold the law and abide by it as well. The legitimacy and performance of each of the authorities – which in liberal theory and practice are usually a function of the three classic branches of government, the executive, of which the security sector is an important component, the legislative, and the judiciary – is dependent on the legitimacy and well-being of the other two. Failure to reach a minimum thresh hold of standards and interaction can be perilous to all but the most economically well-endowed totalitarian regimes and even then the use of sheer terror and cooptation can only buy the regime time rather than ensure its actual existence for any considerable period.
