The mission of the Portuguese Court of Auditors is to control the legality and the regularity of public revenue and expenditure, rule on the Accounts as required by the Law, deliver opinions on the General State Account and on the Accounts of the Autonomous Regions, assess the quality of public financial management and enforce financial liabilities, exercising such other powers as assigned by Law:
Article 214 of the Constitution and
Article 1 of the Organisation and Procedural Law of the Court of Auditors.
Furthermore, it is the responsibility of the Court to certify the General State Account from financial year 2023 (Article 66, no. 6 of Law 151/2015, of September 11th, as amended by Law 37/2018, of August 7 th).
In fulfilling its mission, the Court contributes to the sustainable development of public finances.
Our values, the principles that govern us, are
Independence,
Integrity,
Responsibility, and
Transparency.
The Portuguese Court of Auditors has jurisdiction and control powers over all public administrative and corporate entities and organisms, state-owned companies and all private companies that are concessionaires of public works and services or that receive public money, including funds from the European Union.
These powers are pursued in different ways; generally speaking, three major areas are identified: the a priori control, the successive control and the enforcement of financial liabilities. It is also worth noting the concomitant control, which falls on the financial activity performed before the closure of the financial statements, particularly to the expenditure arising from acts and contracts not subject to a priori control.
The Court of Auditors has jurisdiction in all the Portuguese territory and Portuguese public entities and representation offices abroad.
At the Headquarters, it comprises three specialized Chambers, which have specific responsabilities. There's also one Chamber at each Autonomous Region.
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1st Chamber
Examining and ruling on cases sent for a priori control and exercising concomitant control competencies
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2nd Chamber
Performing concomitant and successive control competencies, conducting audits and external verifications of accounts and enforcing financial liabilities
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3rd Chamber
Enforcing financial liabilities
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Regional Chambers of Azores and Madeira
Perform all the control actions described above, and conduct trials aimed to enforce financial liabilities
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Engagement with the Parliament and Government
The Portuguese Court of Auditors is independent from all other institutions. However, cooperation procedures set out in its legal framework include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Parliament and the Government may request the Court to undertake audits on specific entities or issues, although the requested control actions are not mandatory for the Court;
- Parliament may ask for existing reports to be sent to it;
- Parliament may ask the Court for information related to the audits; and
- The Court's audit reports and annual report are generally published and sent to the Parliament and other stakeholders