National Audit Legal Research

This dissertation includes five sections: the concept of state audit, the history of the state and state audit, the relationship between law and state audit, the comparisons among different modes of state audit and the development of state audit in China. It discusses the relationship between the state and the people (taxpayers), and between the state and law, and it also demonstrates a point that a modern democratic state should establish a state audit mode accountable to its people . There are a lot of unique views presented here upon the concept, the position, the mode and the functions of state audit.People set up a state so as to manage the society, therefore, people have the obligation to pay taxes to the state, and meanwhile they have the right to supervise the state management and the use of taxes by the state. On the one hand, the state has the right to manage and use taxes; on the other hand, it has the obligation to manage and use taxes properly. Law is the tool or vehicle to assure and implement this right and obligation. Once state audit is affirmed to be accountable to its people by law, is state audit entitled the power to supervise independently the other power organs of the state. In brief, the power of state audit comes from the right of the people to supervise the state and from the obligation of the state to be accountable to its people, and from the affirmation of this right and obligation by law. The responsibility of state audit is to perform the rights and responsibilities stipulated by law. From the above we can learn that state audit is a kind of supervision not only by the state, but also by law and essentially by the people.State audit refers to a kind of the state supervision affirmed by the state law to examine the state cost estimate and the efficiency in operating public finance by the state. It is also the law supervision by which people transfer their own rights into the state power to supervise the state cost estimate and the efficiency in operating public finance.The emergence and evolution of state audit coincide with those of the state. State audit is a fruit of the state. There would be no state audit without a state because a modern democratic state belongs to its people;there would be no state audit system accountable to the people without a democratic state.Law and state audit are closely related to each other. They are mutually distinguished, dependent and interacted. In some cases, law is state audit itself, and the awareness, practice and system of state audit is equal to the awareness, practice and system of law; while in other cases, the status and function of state audit are determined by law which relies its existence upon state audit. At the same time law and state audit are two different items distinguishing from each other.There are various modes of modern state audit in the world and these mainly fall into four categories, namely, the legislative mode, the judiciary mode, the executive mode and the independent mode. Each mode has its own features and its advantages and disadvantages. Comparisons of these features and the advantages and disadvantages of each mode lead to the conclusion that a state audit system accountable to the people should be established, which is the goal of reforms and development of state audit throughout the world.The 1982 Constitution of the People's Republic of China stipulates that China practices a state audit system. In Accordance to the strategy of "ruling the country by law and building a socialist country governed by law", three choices to reform the present state audit system have been proposed in this dissertation: 1, to build an independent state audit system accountable to the people and only obedient to law; 2, to set up a legislative state audit system by shifting the sate audit under the executive branch to under the top legislative body; 3, to reform the present executive state audit system. Any reform measures to the state audit mode must be adoptable to the state's own situation and should be...