An enquiry into the independence of Brazil's federal court of accounts

De Gustavo Hirsch

The Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) is Brazil's "leading government audit institution"; it is the only one dealing exclusively with auditing. The TCU is part of the federal legislative branch, which the TCU assists in its constitutional attribution of overseeing the government finances (Article 71 of the Federal Constitution). Grosso modo, its structure includes, on one side, a professional corps with 1,576 auditors and, on the other, a college of nine judges called ministers that decide on cases. These ministers are chosen by Congress (six) and by the president (three, upon confirmation by the Senate). The requirements for becoming a member are rather loose: the appointees need only be between 35 and 65 years of age, have good reputation and knowledge on a number of topics, and ten years of work experience in a relevant area (Art. 73, §1). Observers say they usually are at the height or the end of their political career when chosen to join the TCU. Further, nominations are highly politicised. With all that, the connections to politics that most of its ministers have – five in the current composition have run for office – seem to be a perfect formula for partisan dominance of the Tribunal. However, the TCU has shown relative independence from daily politics. The book attempts at demonstrating how.

• Idioma: Português
• Editora: Editora Dialética
• Data de lançamento: 2 de jun. de 2021
• ISBN: 9786525204185

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am very grateful to the University of Oxford for honouring me with the degree of Master of Science in Latin American Studies. This text was submitted as partial fulfilment of the requirements for the programme’s completion in 2018.

I would like to thank my supervisor Prof Timothy J Power for his patient and attentive reading and for his advice and commentaries.

I also thank all the persons interviewed for this research as well as the people with whom I spoke about this project and who gave useful suggestions.

INTRODUCTION

RESEARCH QUESTION AND PUZZLE

The Federal Court of Accounts (henceforth referred to as the TCU or Tribunal) is Brazil’s leading government audit institution (Speck, 2011); it is the only one dealing exclusively with auditing. The TCU is part of the federal legislative branch, which the TCU assists in its constitutional attribution of overseeing the government finances (Article 71 of the Federal Constitution). Grosso modo, its structure includes, on one side, a professional corps with 1,576 auditors and, on the other, a college of nine judges called ministers that decide on cases (TCU, n.d.-a). These ministers are chosen by Congress (six) and by the president (three, upon confirmation by the Senate)¹. The requirements for becoming a member are rather loose (Sakai & Paiva, 2016, pp. 7–8): the appointees need only be between 35 and 65 years of age, have good reputation and knowledge on a number of topics, and ten years of work experience in a relevant area² (Art. 73, §1). Observers say they usually are at the height or the end of their political career when chosen to join the TCU (Speck, 2011). Further, nominations are highly politicised (Matthew & Buranelli, 2007, p. 69; Santiso, 2007, p. 285). With all that, the connections to politics that most of its ministers have – five in the current composition have run for office³ – seem to be a perfect formula for partisan dominance of the Tribunal.

However, the TCU has shown relative independence from daily politics. This work will not argue that partisanship disappeared from the TCU altogether – or from any institution for that matter. But there are reasons to believe that political parties actually influence less than expected; additionally, that this influence has waned over time. Indeed, the TCU has achieved a solid reputation in society and among other bodies within the Brazilian web of accountability⁴. Bureaucrats and politicians fear and respect it (Santiso, 2007, p. 283). Some even wish the TCU had fewer attributions and less power⁵. How has it become relatively independent, considering its institutional design, especially the ostensibly political mode of designation of its ministers?

SUGGESTION THAT THE TCU IS RELATIVELY INDEPENDENT FROM POLITICAL PARTIES

I define independence from political parties as the degree to which the decisions issued by the TCU reflect its members sincere evaluation of the cases and the degree to which that evaluation is affected by partisan politics.

In his thesis, Santiso (2007, p. 294) criticises the mode of designation of ministers at the TCU, which tends to reflect the majority coalition in Congress. He appears to side with Alston et al. in their assumption that the TCU