[rsynnott]

This is a pretty common model for countries which became independent of the UK; Ireland did more or less the same copy-paste job, but in the 1920s, so ended up with a _way_ weaker president than in the US model (the Irish presidency is more or less a standin for a constitutional monarch, with ~no real powers) and upper house, and stronger lower house.

[simonh]

Good point, and I think the fact that most commonwealth countries adopted more recent and therefore more modern iterations of the british model is a good thing.

In comparison the US system seems hopelessly outdated, and even riven with the many of the same problems we had during the George III mad king era, except we managed to move on.