That was not the first workshop of this initiative. However, considering the specificity of the structures of legal departments in SAIs across the globe, that was the first meeting dedicated only to legal experts gathered in EUROSAI.
The meeting participants discussed current legal challenges faced by Supreme Audit Institutions with regard to their independence and the draft scope of tasks for the projected partnership support mechanism coordinated by IDI. The meeting also involved a discussion on the model which is to help SAIs provide efficient legal support.
The meeting was attended by representatives of the INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI) and 11 SAI participants from 7 countries: Czech Republic, Georgia, Malta, Montenegro, Poland, Romania and Spain. The meeting was opened by Vice-President of NIK Piotr Miklis. A special guest of the workshop was Member of the Polish Parliament (Sejm) Przemysław Witek.
Legal departments and units play a special role in safeguarding SAIs’ independence. Their contribution includes legal counselling to support audits, advisory on institutional activities and active promotion of the institutions’ autonomy.
To foster Supreme Audit Institutions in strengthening this function, IDI has launched an initiative to fortify the role of legal units as proactive guardians of SAIs’ institutional independence. This initiative is also to enhance understanding of the way legal units operate in different countries – both proactively and reactively – and identification of good practices which help SAIs create and reinforce these units as part of the “independence safeguarding system”.
As part of the programme experts’ meetings were held in Spain, RSA, Poland and Malta, attended by lawyers from OLACEFS, PASAI, EUROSAI and AFROSAI-E. Those meetings facilitated exchange of experiences and ended in a joint agreement on which priority topics should be addressed while implementing the initiative.
The following issues were discussed at the workshop held at NIK:
- Analyses of good practices related to strengthening SAIs’ independence by legal departments and units.
- A platform for legal experts facilitating cooperation and mutual learning.
- A repository of legal documents to further knowledge sharing.
- Evaluation of maturity of the legal function to identify the improvement capacity as part of SAIs.
In future IDI is going to start cooperation with law-making and judiciary bodies which play a pivotal role in ensuring and maintaining SAIs’ independence.
