User:Mzatikyan/sandbox

General Introduction

As stated in the Article 83.4 of the Constitution of RA, the Control Chamber of the Republic of Armenia is an independent body, which oversees the use of the budget resources and the state and community property. So, the Control Chamber follows the execution of the budget. The action plan of the Control Chamber shall be approved by the National Assembly. The Control Chamber shall at least once a year submit a report on the oversight outcomes to the National Assembly. The law shall define the regulations on the procedure and powers of the Control Chamber. The Chairman of the Control Chamber shall be appointed by the National Assembly upon the recommendation of the President of the Republic for a six- year term. Any person complying with the requirements for the Deputy can be appointed Chairman of the Control Chamber. The same person may not be elected for the post of Chairman of the Control Chamber for more than two consecutive terms. From HE LAW OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA ON THE CONTROL CHAMBER OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA

Article 7 The Control Chamber consists of the chairperson of the Control Chamber, the Council of Control Chamber, and the staff. Article 8.1 The chairman of the Control Chamber is the President of the Control Chamber. Article 8.2 The president of Control Chamber should be a person who is at least 25; is a citizen of RA in the last 5 years; permanently lives in RA during the last 5 years; and has an electoral light. Article 11.1 Every year the president of control chamber, after the position of a council member becomes vacant, during 10 days, proposes to President of RA a new candidate instead of the member of the council of Control Chamber, whose term of office expired. Article 11.2 Members of the council of Control Chamber, including the president of Control Chamber, cannot be proposed for elections of state and local self-governing bodies, hold governmental posts in state or local self-government bodies or perform other paid activities except for scientific, educational and creative.

History Following independence, the emerging new political and economic relations required the creation of a state financial and economic system, able to sustain the benefits to both state and society under the conditions of a liberal economy. At the same time, it was necessary to create a new legislative field to determine the financial control principles and approaches. One such institution to emerge from this was the Control Chamber of the Republic of Armenia National Assembly; a new system of state financial control. This external state control performing structure was founded on May 29, 1996. A few main objectives were given to the Control Chamber of the RA National Assembly: to exercise comprehensive and professional control over the effective spending of state revenues and funds ensuring transparency of their usage. The next major function of the RA NA Control Chamber was the analyzing of presented reports.

The Control Chamber of Armenia was formed by the National Assembly and was accountable to the country’s legislative body. The Chamber was submitting to the National Assembly semiannual references, control progress reports, annual plans and reports of the Chamber's activities, thus making its study results public. The principles of the RA NA Control Chamber activity were those of independence, collegiality and publicity.

It was performing its activities on its own, independently from the bodies of power being guided by the principles of the Lima declaration, as well as by those of INTOSAI (International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions). Bearing in mind that the RA NA Control Chamber was a completely new structure, its first steps were directed towards the determination of the Chamber’s structural-functional divisions, professional departments and fields of activity. According to the Charter approved by the National Assembly, four control departments were operating within the Chamber of Control: State Budget, Privatisation and Denationalisation; Foreign Loans and Credits; the Comprehensive-Analytical and Informational-Methodological. Later with the amendments to the Charter, the number of Control Chamber departments was increased by one with the addition of the Department of Control Over Community Budgets.

During 2002-2007 a number of important events took place in the National Assembly's Control Chamber: 54.6% of the expenditure part of the RA state budget started to be controlled, instead of the previous 20%, the RA NA CoC performed joint audits with the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation, the Control Chamber became a member of the INTOSAI Working Group on Environmental Auditing and there became active cooperation with international organisations. As a result of this cooperation 10 standards of external state sphere control, as well as financial and industrial control manuals, were developed. During the same years a new INTRANET system of document circulation management was installed, as well as the computer information system of external state control over RA community budgets.

Since 2007, the Control Chamber issues, every quarter, an official handbook containing their reports and conclusions illustrating the progress of all work undertaken.

As a result of the Constitutional changes, the necessity to bring in a new law on “RA Control Chamber” arose. On December 25, 2006, the National Assembly adopted a new law on the Chamber, which was ratified on June 9, 2007, and came into force from the tenth day succeeding the coming into effect of the Constitution's 83.4 article, i.e. on November 5, 2007.

The RA Control Chamber, which is the legal successor of the RA NA Control Chamber, in comparison with the previous one, has a number of distinctive features which relate to the state, functions and authority of the Chamber: under the new legislation, the CoC chairman is being appointed by the NA upon the proposal of the RA president for a six-year term and the CoC Council, besides the chairman and the deputy, consists of a further 5 members. If previously the National Assembly was approving the CoC annual plan and report, under the new law the NA takes notice of the report on annual activity, and approves the plan, like in the previous case

On the basis of the new legal requirements, structural changes have been made in the Chamber: The departments have been reformed, not like in previous case on the principles of branch or sphere, but on a functional basis and a number of new divisions have been added such as the department of internal control.

Such working dynamics does not rule out the possibility of future CoC structural changes.