This paper engages with recent literature in Ottoman history that has defined the late Ottoman legal environment as “pluralistic.” I argue that this description is insufficient for characterizing the conflicts experienced between different legal and administrative entities during the Hamidian period. Specifically, I will focus on conflicts between those branches of government defined in mid-19th century laws as “executive” (i.e., the office of the governor at different administrative levels) vs. “judicial” (i.e., the new nizamiye institutions and the Sharia courts). I will use these conflicts to show that the late Ottoman legal environment was not simply pluralistic, but highly contested at an institutional level. The paper will first introduce mid-19th century imperial legislation that aimed to separate the functions of executive vs. judicial governing entities throughout the empire. This was one step in the decades-long process of creating the nizamiye court system, and aimed to create an independent judiciary in Ottoman lands as well as a depoliticized practice of administration. To this end, the laws stated clearly that executives, most pointedly provincial, county and district governors as well as administrative councils and officials, were not to interfere in the workings of the new nizamiye judicial councils. The second part of my paper will examine the problems associated with the political process of implementing this separation of powers by parsing an investigation of a county governor carried out by nizamiye institutions in Ottoman Syria. The investigation reveals two dynamics at the provincial level: first, the historical involvement of newly defined “executive” institutions in “judicial” matters meant that governors and bureaucrats were loathe to surrender their decision-making powers to nizamiye councils. Second, the development of administrative and judicial councils at the district, county and provincial levels involved extensive overlap in personnel between entities later defined either as executive or judicial, especially with regard to the local notables serving on such councils. This overlap rendered the practicality of separating powers politically sensitive. Through the case study, I will also show that the main stakes of the battle to separate powers lay in control over land. In the Hamidian post-Land Code period, newly defined private land rights were becoming the most economically valuable resource available to local inhabitants and Ottoman administrators alike. Decision-making power regarding conflicts over land rights therefore became politically lucrative just as the attempt to separate judicial and executive powers got underway.