Where is auditing performed by supreme audit institutions headed for? : International scene – a “snapshot”

Abstract

Today, an indispensable concomitant of a democratic state anywhere in the world is that it controls the entirety of management of public funds and public property, utilisation of public good and operation of the executive power through a constitutional institution independent of this power, on behalf of popular sovereignty, and with the purpose of supporting the parliament's work. Development of the (precursors) of the current auditing performed by supreme audit institutions and of financial auditing is linked to the enlightenment as an ideal of statehood, the principle of power distribution and the state serving the freedom of enterprising and citizens. What audit institutions everywhere do is basically facilitate the Parliament exercising its functions of legislation and scrutiny, as well as its fiscal right. Supreme audit institutions and their professional precursors look back to centuries of history; such an organisation also has considerable traditions in Hungary.