Gonçalo Matias, speaking at the parliamentary committee on State Reform and Local Power during a scheduled hearing, emphasized that the Portuguese Court of Auditors’ model is unique in Europe.
“We are currently working on the Court of Auditors law, which we will bring to parliament – it is a matter within the competence of the Assembly of the Republic – for approval,” he added.
“What I can advance on this matter is that the objective, as outlined in the Government’s program, is to simplify” or reduce “the prior approval process, increasing post-audit oversight.”
He assured that the general principle of this measure “is not to decrease accountability, nor to lessen oversight.”
The Court of Auditors’ model “has no parallel in Europe,” meaning “no other European country has this; many countries do not have a Court of Auditors” and “those that do have a Court of Auditors do not have a prior approval model like ours,” argued the government official.
“It is highly complex and a deterrent to decision-making; a court serves to verify the legality of acts performed, not to replace the political or administrative decision-maker,” continued the Minister of State Reform.
What “we want is for the court to operate according to its jurisdictional function. Therefore, reduction of prior approval, increase of post-audit oversight, no reduction in oversight, and also a vision of financial responsibility to ensure that those who have to decide do so according to the competencies assigned to them with their political role, without violating the separation of powers where there is no confusion between the function of judging and the function of administration.”
Regarding public procurement, “we have an enormous dispersion of rules.” In other words, rules have been created, and “today, the exceptions are much more numerous than the general rule,” thus “there is also an effort to concentrate to avoid (…) the legal uncertainty that results from this legislative dispersion.”
