On The Fiscal Budget Disclosure And Its Legal Control

Fiscal budget reflects the whole nation's policies and restricts the scope and directions of the governmental activities. Budget disclosure is the exemplification of democracy in the system of budget, the inherent requirement of the public finance and the important facet of administration-transparency promotion. In the current stage when the idea of rule of law is actively advancing in China, the fiscal budget disclosure has no way to recede. However, due to the special realities of China, the process of budget disclosure does not operate well, which seriously blocks the realization of the constitutional values of the fiscal budget and influences the construction of a rule-of-law state of China somehow. Therefore, it is necessary to study the budget disclosure.Part I of this paper gives a brief introduction of the origin of the fiscal budget, from which perspective the nature of the budget disclosure is developed, and discusses the practical significance of budget disclosure as in raising the tax-paying sense of Chinese citizens and leveling up the public credibility of the government. Part II discusses the constitutional values of the budget disclosure from such three angles as budget disclosure and tax payers' protection, budget disclosure and the realization of the public finance, and budget disclosure and the construction of fiscal-law governance. Part III concludes some helpful experiences of developed countries in promoting the transparency of the fiscal budget, which are making laws for the fiscal budget disclosure and constructing mature operational mechanisms for the fiscal budget disclosure. Part IV analyzes the practical problems faced by China's fiscal budget disclosure, and concludes four major problems confronted by China's budget disclosure, which are lack of transparency in the fiscal budgetary process, non-disclosure of the subordinate departments'budget, optional disclosure of the fiscal budget, and shortness of details in the budget disclosure. This part gathers the main causes of the problems as well, those are, the influence of China's traditional bureaucracy system, the government-oriented model of fiscal budget, the common non-disclosure of major improper expenditure, and the immature legal system.The last part proposes some suggestions how fiscal budget disclosure be legally controlled, which include adding into the Budget Law new provisions positively prescribing the principles of fiscal budget disclosure, the procedures of disclosure, and the legal liabilities, and devises a strengthened mechanism which ought to be performed by the people's congresses of different levels for the supervision of the fiscal budget.