Control function of the Parliament: parliamentary inquiry commissions and audit chambers

Many scholars have noted the growth of dependence of Russian legislatures on executive authorities. For this reason it seems important to scrutinize the effectiveness of realization of parliament's functions in contemporary Russia. The number of functions varies from author to author, but all of them emphasize the heightened control. Parliamentary control is implemented by the higher legislative (representative) body. We define it as a complex of measures which includes the monitoring and audit of the public administration and, also, the recommendations on the elimination of violations and the causes and conditions that contributed to their occurrence. This article is devoted to the development and practices of parliamentary commissions of inquiry and account chambers. By analyzing the process of the institutionalization of investigation commissions, we highlight the main shortcomings of the regulation of parliamentary investigation. For example, a restrictive list of objects under parliament control, the failure of the mechanism which should be used for considering the results of finished investigations, or the lack of transparency in activities of parliamentary commissions of inquiry. We argue for the need of careful analysis of different approaches to organizing and providing parliament investigations in Russian regions, and also question of how the results of parliamentary investigations influence the political agenda. We look at the control over the account chamber for the process of implementation of budgetary obligations. Analysis of activity of control-account chambers demonstrates that recommendations of these bodies are usually used during budgeting. The consequences of such participation include budget optimization, the exclusion of illegal outcomes, etc. We outline a few systematic problems, like increasing the budget without special circumstances, lack of legal framework, considerable year-end funding, unreliability of financial statements, lack of control over the execution of works from the side of state customers, and diversion of public funds. Finally we indicate the need to research the role of parliamentary commissions of inquiry in the political process and approaches to assessing the efficiency of account chamber.

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