The Oversight Exercised by the Legislative Authority over the Public Budget in Iraq

Abstract

This study seeks to explore the control of the legislature over the state's public budget especially within the context of Iraqi constitutional system of 2005 as one of the important areas that consolidate the principle of separation of powers and serve as mechanism that consolidate financial transparency in relation to managing the state's funds through the examination of concept of parliamentary oversight, the aims and scope of it, the mechanisms and forms of parliamentary control including prior, concomitant and consequent parliamentary control to achieve the examination of means of control used by the Council of Representatives such as the questions posed, interpellation, fact-finding committees, voting no-confidence motion; and determination of principal factors which handicap parliamentary control effectiveness such as the preponderance of the executive authority and weakness of the political willingness, and influence of the party block on the decisions made by the Council and drawing several conclusions from this study showing the continued weak implementation of parliamentary control and the need for their actualization and activation on the ground due to being in favor of strong constitutional provisions governing that mechanism, along with recommendations which suggest effective operation for controls to be relied upon in evaluating the financial and administrative performance of the state with focusing on specialized expert work and independence of parliament.