The Sao Paulo Court of Audit, Supporting Foundations and the Federal Constitution

Abstract

The Federal Constitution has exceedingly increased the powers of the Audit Courts, concentrating them on the Section of Accounting, Financial and Budget Auditing, which comprises articles 70 and 75, observing that for the state courts, the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court (STF) consolidated the opinion that they are compulsorily subjected to the federal model of organization, composition and auditing due to the the symmetry principle found in article 75 of the Federal Constitution (CF/88). Concerning auditing, up to the present, São Paulo State Audit Court has not yet come into agreement with the powers foreseen in CF/88. Besides that serious problem, one also managed to identify that in the process of law drafting within São Paulo State, unfortunately the principle of constitutional symmetry has not been taken into account. Such a situation has overtime resulted in incalculable damage to the development of science, technology, and innovation projects, as well as to the improvement of São Paulo State own administration, which is delayed in relation to the other member states, mainly in its relationship with supporting foundations.