National Audit Restricting And Supervising Power: Theoretical And Empirical Research

The Report at the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (NCCPC) definitely made a point of"exert the function of auditing institution and other departments"in the discussion of tightening the restraint and supervision over the use of power. This is the significant responsibility that the 16th NCCPC endow to the auditing organs for the purpose of deepening the reform of political system and tightening the restraint and supervision over power. Undoubtedly, it has academic and realistic significance for the further study on the restraint and supervision of national audit. Therefore, the theoretical and empirical research would conduce to integrated recognition of the significance, necessity and feasibility of restraint and supervision over power, make for the examination of the experience and the defect of current audit restructuring, also help to confirm the direction and approach of the reform.The research approaches in this dissertation include two aspects: The first is to prove that auditing supervision is an important component of power restraint and supervision system, refer the reasonable choice of national audit restructuring in China. The second is to attest that the path of national audit restructuring lies on reinforcing the restraint and supervision of national audit over power. The research on restraint and supervision over power is always the hotpot in social science, takes some attention from politics, sociology, law, economics, administration, party building and other fields. However, to discuss power restraint and supervision from the point of national audit supervision is rather new.This dissertation is composed of introduction and six chapters. And the contents of the introduction include the purpose of research, methodology and the contents and structure of this dissertation.Chapter I, Power and National Audit: Theoretical Review. This chapter discussed the source of power, the relationship between the powers, the standpoint of Marxian political power, the theory of power restraint and supervision, the provenance and essence of national audit and so forth. Power can be defined as a kind of force which is based on national regime, state administration and national political relationships and endowed by certain institution and law, also as a kind of power acting to achieve certain benefit by political authority. In accordance with the practice of past political society, there are two approaches to power control: restraint on power and supervision over power. Focused on different aspects, the two approaches have interacted to regulate power, ensuring the validity and security of power exercise. The Report endowed auditing institution much more important duty and emphasized to"exert the function of auditing institution and other departments"for the purpose of deepening political restructuring, tightening restraint and supervision over power and anti-corruption. Audit is derived from fiduciary duty while national audit derived from public fiduciary duty. Along with the widening of duty domain, it has been developed ceaselessly. From the recent research, we can get some ideas about the source, function, object and essence of the national audit.Chapter II, Audit Supervision and the Function of Audit Supervision. This chapter primarily deals with the power restraint and supervision system, the essential characteristics of audit and the statutory responsibility of national audit, and the function of national audit. From the research, the author found that the restricting and supervision of power is the essential characteristics of audit and the statutory responsibility of audit, the important method to prevent the corrupt and the crucial point of supervision. Compared with the other economic supervision, auditing supervision features integration, independence and profession. The supervision of audit is over the entire process of economic activities and omni-dimension of economic life. And the auditing institution is the only organization endowed with the function of economic supervision by Constitution. At present, the abuse of power usually emerges in the form of corruption. Therefore, the basic mission of power supervision is to prevent corruption. The specialties of audit make it irreplaceable when handling with anti-corruption. Also by the audit of economic responsibility during the tenure of leading cadres, supervision and evaluation would be directly over the people who exercise power so as to prevent power abuse from the sources. The normal function of national audit include the supervision, evaluation and appreciation, and the principal function of national audit is to supervise the decision making and policy running of the allocation of the national fiscal resource.Chapter III, Restraint and Supervision of National Audit on Power: Fulfillment and Evaluation in China. This chapter discussed the historical development and basic obligation of national audit in China, some problems emerged in the process of duty fulfillment, the limitation of the economic responsibility audit and national audit. The role of national audit in supervision over state's macroeconomic regulation is to supervise the implementation of state's macroeconomic regulation policies through the audit of fiscal income and expenses, feed back the auditing information. The restraint on and supervision of audit over power is not a panacea but being limited to the power related with fiscal income and expenses including economic decision-making, administration and regulation. Due to the deficiencies of current audit system and absence of legal audit environment, the effect of audit on power supervision can not be exaggerated; otherwise it will lead to greater risk of audit.Chapterâ…£, International Comparison of National Audit System. This chapter mainly discussed the national audit systems in developed countries, some factors influencing the audit system. As a component of basic political system, national audit system has established in more than 160 countries all over the world. Recently there are four mature patterns: legislative mode subjected to parliament, judiciary mode subjected to judicial institution, administrative mode under government and the independent national audit system absolutely separated from legislation, judicature and government. With the economic globalization the legislative and judiciary mode should strengthen cooperation to complement one another so as to form a new auditing institution. This trend of development will make the audit system completely subjected to administrative institution to withdraw from the history.Chapterâ…¤, The Path of National Audit Restructuring in China. This chapter discussed the fountain of the weak independent independence of the national audit in China, the system requirement and the object of national audit reform. This chapter pointed a proposal that national audit system should transfer from administrative mode to legislative mode and transfer internal supervision of government audit to external supervision and to shake off the infection of government behavior and shape independent external supervision, ensure the independence of national audit. According to basic idea of progressive reform, local national audit institution could implement the legislative mode firstly. Eventually, the national audit institution will be stripped off from governmental, and answer for the people's congresses and supervise the economic activities of governments, which rationalize the auditing relationships among the consigner, the assignee and the undertaker of public resource management responsibility embodying the essence of national audit which is "public supervise, government pays" and the separate principle of implementation and supervision.Chapterâ…¥, The Path of Probing into Restraint and Supervision of National Audit on Exercise of Power. This chapter has expatiated that build-up democracy as a guarantee of deepening national audit will lead to the aggrandizement of restraint on and supervision of national audit over power ultimately. The function of restraint depends on the independence of audit by law. In order to enhance the restriction and supervision over government, the national audit has established the target of governmental arbitrary interference and anti-corruption. The Report indicates that China has been aware of the significance of restraint on and supervision over government power.In this dissertation, author made some research in many areas, forming some new opinions and standpoints.1. To analyze the problem of restraint and supervision over power synthetically from the aspect of national audit, as an important component of power restraint and supervision system national audit supervision plays a momentous role in the system. This dissertation holds that the restricting and supervision of power is the essential characteristics of audit and the statutory responsibility of audit, the important method to prevent the corrupt and the crucial point of supervision. The normal function of national audit include the supervision, evaluation and appreciation, and the principal function of national audit is to supervise the decision making and policy running of the allocation of the national fiscal resource. The main task of national audit is anti-corruption which can be actualized by the restraint on and supervision over power. The specialties of audit make it irreplaceable when handling with anti-corruption. Also by the audit of economic responsibility during the tenure of leading cadres, supervision and evaluation would be directly over the people who exercise power so as to prevent power abuse.2. This dissertation also discussed the limitation of restraint and supervision of national audit over power. Restraint and supervision of audit over power is not a panacea but being limited to the power related with fiscal income and expenses including economic decision-making, administration and regulation.3. This dissertation analyzed the system requirement, practical foundation and progressive mode of national audit restructuring in China, pointed proposals and solution to deepen the restraint and supervision of national audit over power. The best plan of national audit restructuring is to carry out the legislative mode of auditing system with Chinese characteristics which implies the auditing commission should be set up directly under people's congresses and answer for them. Build-up democracy as a guarantee to deepen national audit will lead to the aggrandizement of restraint on and supervision of national audit over power ultimately. Therefore, not only the independence of audit but also the restriction and supervision over power of government should be strengthened by law so as to establish and improve the restriction and balance mechanism, achieving separation of power. It is required to put the performance audit into practice, examine the efficiency of governmental power mechanism and make audit more transparent.