Federation is a device to harmonise the need for local autonomy with the necessity of preserving the unity of the State. This requires that there should be government for the country as a whole to administer national affairs and other governments to look after the needs and interests of local areas in such a may that both sets of governments are supreme within their own spheres. Hence the most important characteristic of a federation is the formal distribution of sovereign powers between the federal government at the centre and the governments of the federating units. “A federal constitution attempts to reconcile the apparently irreconcilable claims of national sovereignty and State sovereignty.” It does not divide sovereignty between the two sets of governments, because to divide sovereignty is to destroy it. It only distributes sovereign powers between them. Sovereignty lies neither in the federal government nor in the federating units, but in the constitution-amending power, as prescribed in the constitution.
A federation is a ‘union of governments’. It has the following distinctive features:
Federation comprises two sets of governments, federal and federating governments.
The supreme powers are divided on the principle that matters of common interest or of national importance are entrusted to the central government, while local matters and interests are entrusted to the unit governments.
Federation envisages a unjon rather than unity. It creates a dual government and not a unitary one. The. federating units preserve their separate, autonomous and distinct entity and exercise supreme and original authority within their spheres of powers. They are not reduced to nonentity as are the administrative units of a unitary stale. They are no mere agents of the central government, and do not exist on its discretion. They have their own separate and autonomous existence, guaranteed by the constitution, on which also depends the existence of the central government. The States which federate into a union lose their former sovereignty because their union creates a new State which now becomes sovereign.
A federation” is made: it does not grow.
It has a written constitution so as to prevent any doubt or dispute about the distribution of powers between the federal and federating governments. Neither the federal nor the unit government can amend the constitution with a view to redistributing the supreme powers. The constitution clearly prescribes the process of amending it. The constitution is supreme. Sovereignty lies with the body or bodies which have the power to amend the constitution.
Federation is a permanent union. This feature distinguishes it (i) from a confederation which is a loose and limited union of State and (ii) from alliances of sovereign State, such as N.A.T.O. or the U.N.O.