Les chambres régionales des comptes

[4) An organization in network directed by the members of the Court of Auditors

As the President of the room underlines it, Mrs Lamarque, the legislative text could open a faculty of integration at the Court. This faculty of integration by the top testifies to the stake taken by the development of the activities of the rooms, which, by by-effect, revalorizes the statute of magistrates whose promotion is organically limited.

« The reform of the statute of the advisers of room, which will come soon, we hope for it before the Parliament, comprises in this respect significant measurements. This text ensures a more fluid course of career, with the reduction of the number of ranks from four to three. It opens a faculty of integration at the Court. It guarantees a better transparency in the management of the careers »^64(*).

Recruitment in the body of the magistrates of regional rooms since 1983

(source : Court of Auditors)

	In a number	Expressed as a percentage
ENA (direct recruitment)	82	21,4%
Finances	155	40,5%
Interior	18	4,7%
Defense	20	5,2%
Officers	12	3,1%
National education	19	5,0%
Social affairs	22	5,7%
Postal and telecommunications authorities	8	2,1%
Agriculture	4	1,0%
Prime Minister	2	0,5%
Local communities	26	6,8%
Others	12	3,1%
Total	383	100%

Because the operation of the rooms is dominated by the members of the Court of Auditors, one of the oldest French administrative institutions^65(*), created in 1807, subsequently to the Council of State.

Thus, as one notes it, if the majority of the financial magistrates does not result from the ENA, it is however elite of ENA, members of Court of Auditors, which actively determines the orientations or the standpoint relating to the action of the regional rooms of the accounts, which coordinates the action of those, which ensure the integration of information and direct possibly the standpoint of controlling, in particular with regard to certain nominations or of possible lawful or legislative evolutions.

What does not want to say that they do not integrate the opinions or recommendations of the other magistrates. The lawful or legislative texts, their organization, the weight of the history, their competences and their capacities, the position of the Court and the rooms within the French politico-administrative building confers to them a measurable influence upon their engagements or their public standpoint.

Mrs Helene Gisserot, Attorney General close the Court of Auditors, had recalled besides, during her hearing by the senators, Thursday June 5, 1997, the history of the vehicle inspection operated by the regional rooms of the accounts^66(*). And that this one, of 1835 to 1982, following the activity of the councils of prefecture, 1807 to 1835, had been carried out by the Court of Auditors.

The piloting of certain numbers action is done however in network, which reinforces the possibilities of reactions and adaptation of the organization.

And this all the more easily as progress of computerization^67(*) and the setting-up of an Internet site common to the whole of the jurisdictions of the accounts and accessible to the public, of a specific site Intranet to each room and of a extranet common to all the jurisdictions, this progress technical accompanied the setting-up by an organization based on the collegial structure and by the formulas by commissions or committees which can be inter or intra-rooms and which can also integrate members of the Court.

Thus the regional room of the accounts of High-Normandy set up a commission of the methods which allows to reflect if necessary on particular topics, the such financial analysis.

Always under the crook of the President of the room : «I preserve the presidency of the commission of the methods... One launched a seminar interns on the financial analysis... If not the other commissions are chaired by the President of Section...

Thus that, it is related to control itself, and I have another function which is that of the management of the room.... I am Member of the equal technical Commission in the center.... The authority of partnership with the trade unions... The assistants have specific problems... The last part of my external activities, they are the exits.... When one is a jurisdiction autonomous and founded on the secrecy, one may find it beneficial to leave outside. »^68(*) 

The presidents of room are automatically members of the Court of Auditors, which means that it is them which determine the notation and thus the advance of the magistrates. In addition, it is the Court of Auditors which coordinates the activity of the regional rooms of the accounts and which provides the interface with the government.

Lastly, they are the presidents of rooms which control the diffusion of the final letters of observation, by rewriting if necessary the contents of these letters intended for the audited and controlled communities.

« There is the program... I chair deliberated. The plenary section ..... I sign all the letters of observations and I do not delegate... I sign also the judgments... By prudence »^69(*).

The financial magistrate is thus not alone and its activity is firmly framed

by a hierarchy directed by the members of the Court of Auditors. This situation is at the same time a constraint and a resource for the financial magistrates.

A resource because the homogeneity of body of the persons in charge is one of the guarantors of the capacity of defense of the interests of the regional rooms but also a constraint the members have de facto of the means of defending in a legitimate way the stakes and the goals of the institution.

As we saw through the various brought back talks, the representation of the interests of the regional rooms of the accounts are thus « monopolized » (symbolically) by the members of the Court of Auditors, because it is them which hold the hierarchical positions most prominent, and the most projecting phenomenon thus relates to the management of the public affairs :

« Our most complex investigations are those which relate to management.

In this case, the relation between the Court and the rooms are not that hierarchical of the double degree of jurisdiction. It is transverse and depends on the voluntary participation of the rooms ....... Our room of High-Normandy is very committed in these collective steps : we take part in investigations in the hospital sector, the management of waste, the RMI, the Casinos and soon the vocational training »^70(*)

This institutional control operated by the members of the Court of Auditors flashes back on the possibilities of professional trajectory of the magistrates.

Agnès Karbouche comes originally from the Regional Institutes of Administration (WILL GO). She was already tallies A but she passed magistrate only recently.

Remi Janner comes initially from the tax authorities where it exerted the functions of listener of the services. Mr. Jacques Pages, President de Section, have just known a promotion since he passed to this rank when he was a magistrate with the regional room of Aquitaine. But promotion remains limited to a small perimeter of stations. Even if, as underlines it one of them, « it is not interdict to go to see elsewhere ... Banking house, specialized in the financings with the local communities... in the companies... One can always resign of the administration... And then it there with the possibility of creating a cabinet of studies or of joining a cabinet of studies... Customers should be constituted «

* ⁶⁴ Extracts of the Short speech pronounced by Mrs the President Danièle Lamarque, at the time of the solemn meeting of February 11, 2000.

* ⁶⁵ J. Magnet, President of room at the Court of Auditors, Court of Auditors, Shepherd-Levrault, 1997. Many works relating to the Court was written by the members Court. See also the work of C. Descheemaeker, Adviser-Master at the Court of Auditors, the Court of Auditors, French Documentation, 1998  : it is a little more consistent and realistic that the precedent. It takes again the points developed by the Norman magistrates and insists in particular on the importance of ethics and the continuous training for work of the magistrates.

* ⁶⁶ Intervention of Mrs H. Gisserot, Report/ratio of the Senate n° 520, p.173.

* ⁶⁷ According to the declarations of Mrs Lardinois, Documentalist with the regional room of the accounts of High-Normandy.

* ⁶⁸ Extract of the discussion with Mrs Lamarque, President of the regional room of High-Normandy.

* ⁶⁹ Extract of the maintenance carried out with Mrs Lamarque, President of the regional room of the accounts of High-Normandy.

* ⁷⁰ Extracts of the short speech pronounced by the president of the room of High-Normandy, Daniele Lamarque. Solemn meeting of Friday February 11 2.000.