The Plurality of Public Expenditure Oversight Bodies and the Binding Nature of Their Findings: A Comparative Study of Iraqi and Iranian Law

Abstract

Abstract

This study addresses a precise legal question in the field of protecting public funds, namely that the multiplicity of bodies entrusted with oversight of public expenditure does not, in itself, produce effective oversight unless the findings these bodies reach are endowed with binding force, and unless a clear functional hierarchy governs the relationship among them. The research problem rests on the observation that the Iraqi and Iranian legislators have multiplied the authorities competent to supervise public expenditure until they reached eleven bodies distributed among parliamentary, administrative, specialised financial and judicial categories, without regulating the relationship among them, and without attaching a binding legal effect to the financial irregularities they uncover in most cases. The study aims to measure the binding force of oversight findings in both systems and to identify their structural defects. It hypothesises that the effectiveness of oversight is achieved not through the multiplicity of its bodies but through the binding force granted to their findings. The study adopts the analytical method in interpreting the relevant texts, the comparative method in weighing the two systems against each other, and the critical method in evaluating the legislative solutions adopted. It concludes, among other findings, that the parliamentary oversight instruments in both systems generally produce a political effect contingent upon parliamentary majorities rather than a legal sanction; and that the Iraqi Federal Board of Supreme Audit stops at the threshold of detecting the financial irregularity without possessing the authority to adjudicate it, unlike the Iranian Court of Audit, which is built as a quasi-judicial body combining detection, prosecution and adjudication, its advisory boards being empowered to issue rulings of compensation and administrative penalties, some of which are final and immediately enforceable. The study recommends specific legislative amendments, foremost among them the imposition of binding time limits for responding to the Board's reports, coupled with a sanction for non-compliance, and the unification of the investigative authority over financial irregularities.