Teacher Registration - a threat to democracy?

Almost the first thing that Michael Gove did when he emerged from the shadows to become Education Secretary was to announce the abolition of the General Teaching Council (GTC) for England. Sure a lot of teachers saw little return for their £33 annual subscription and Gove tapped into this sentiment by suggesting that the Council "acts as a further layer of bureaucracy while taking money away from teachers."

However, what seemed to be behind this was the notion that, in its roles of disciplining naughty teachers, the GTC had not been as robust as Mr Gove would have liked. So, rather than ensure that it was suitably robust in its decisions, he chose to abolish it, announcing that "I want there to be stronger and clearer arrangements in relation to teacher misconduct and I am not convinced the GTCE is the right organisation to take these forward." Presumably his Welsh counterpart did not feel the same as there seems little threat to the GTCW.

The teaching profession had waited many years and fought many battles - mostly with whichever union wanted domination - before ending up with a professional body. For years we had claimed we were a profession and now we had what other professions had; a regulatory and registering body. For all its faults.

It seems that Mr Gove wants teacher registration to continue and wants the (tough) regulatory function to continue so, while the GTC goes to law to look for a solution that will protect it, the Secretary of State proposes that these functions are taken into the Department for Education. And this will leave the legislature (parliament) also being the executive, carrying out the legislation through maintaining the teacher registration function and, it seems, being the judiciary, dispensing justice and clemency.

Is it not a tenet of democracy - and has it not been since Ancient Greece - that the three functions of  legislature, executive and judiciary should be kept separate?

Not in Mr Gove's democratic world it seems!