Jurisdiction
The Court of Audit and regional audit courts mostly adjudicate cases regarding public funds, carrying out:
- Mandatory audits of public accountants to track national and local government funds.
- Discretionary audits of public corporations, publicly subsidized private organizations, and social security and welfare agencies.
- Since 1999, audits of private charities who regularly receive public donations.
Neither national or regional audit courts hear cases related to private organizations, with the few exceptions noted here. Instead, financial cases concerning private funds and money fall within the jurisdiction of the civil justice system.
Prior to 1982, France only had a single national Court of Audit. With a push toward decentralization in the creation of province-like administrative regions and the increased role of local elected officials and considering the Court's enormous docket, France saw fit to establish regional audit courts. The national court now deals primarily with the government, public establishments, and (semi-)public companies on a national level, while the regional courts handle the local level. The court may occasionally delegate national-level audits to regional courts, as is often the case with post-secondary educational facilities.
An important concept in the business of the financial courts is the difference between, in French public accountings, between ordonnateurs (managers who order expenses and perception of payments) and payeurs (the public accountants who pay expenses and recoup debts). The Court only judges public accountants; but it may also make observations about the decisions taken by the ordonnateurs, and possibly send them before other courts for mismanagement (see below).
Activities
These jurisdictions act as courts in the ordinary sense of the word in
some limited circumstances. That is, they judge the accounting of
public accountants (comptables publics) and may fine them in case
of certain failures:
- They may fine public accountants if they are late in handing over their accounting.
- They may find that the accountant neglected to collect money owed to the state (or other government) or, through negligence, unduly gave away state (or other government) money. The responsibility of the public accountant in those circumstances is personal and unlimited, meaning that the accountant has to refund all lost money. This situation is known as débet (from Latin: "he owes"). Because of the possibility of débet, all public accountants must have external warranty as well as insurance. In practice, many débets grossly exceed the financial means of the public accountants concerned, and the Minister of Finance may end up pardoning the debt (remise gracieuse).
- They may find that somebody or some organization did accounting operations on public funds whereas they were not public accountants. In those circumstances, they are found to be de facto public accountants (comptables de fait) and they face the same constraints and penalties as de jure public accountants.
In addition, the Cour des Comptes supports and provides half of the judges of the Cour de discipline financière et budgétaire (Court of financial and budgetary discipline), the other half being provided by the Conseil d'État. This court tries ordonnateurs — that is, the persons who order expenses and the recovery of debts, may fine them for undue expenses or for sums that they should have decided to recover. However, the court cannot try government ministers, or (in almost all cases), local elected officials; thus, with few exceptions, the only ordonnateurs that face the court are civil servants.
If the Cour des Comptes or the regional chambers discern criminal behavior in the accounts that they audit, they refer the matter to the appropriate criminal court.
Most of the activity of the Cour des Comptes and the regional chambers is not of a judicial kind (juridictionnel); rather, they act as a general auditing system. However, even for these activities, they act with almost complete independence of both the executive and the legislative branches.
The court and chambers may advise, or reprimand, ministries, administrations and public establishments that they audited.
The court and chamber publish a yearly report in which it discusses a selection of misuses of funds and other incidents. In addition, they may also publish specialized reports. The court and chambers are free to inquire on whatever they wish within their field of competency; the court may also be commissioned reports by Parliament.
In all these advisory and publishing activities, the court and chambers do not limit themselves to pure accounting issues, but they also take the efficiency of public services into account. They may, for instance, criticize an expense that was legally ordered and accounted for, but which was inappropriate with respect to criteria of good financial management.
The 2001 Loi d'orientation sur les lois de finances (LOLF, law fixing the framework for budget acts) changed the way budget was passed in France: now, budget is attributed to specific missions, and the efficiency of spending on each mission is to be assessed. In that context, the court's missions will include an increased dose of assessment of efficiency.