감사원의 헌법상 기능 및 권한에 대한 소고

According to the Article 97 of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea, the Board of Audit and Inspection shall be established under the direct jurisdiction of the President to inspect and examine the settlement of the revenues and expenditures of the State, the accounts of the State and other organizations specified by Act and the job performances of the executive agencies and public officials. This has been the case since the Constitution of the third Republic in 1963 integrating the functions of the accounting examination and the inspection, which were performed separately by the “Auditing Institution(Shim Kye-won)” and “the Committee of Inspection”. Recently it is high time that the constitution should be amended because 30 years have passed since the last amendment and the problems of the powerful authorities of the so-called “imperial” president appeared. However, it is undesirable that the position of the Board of Audit and Inspection should be changed because it is a kind of measurement to weaken the power of president and strengthen that of parliament. The function of audit and inspection should be considered within the framework of the Constitutional Value to ensure the transparency, autonomy, efficiency and soundness of public finance, so it needs the juridictional power to make audit and inspection. to be smoothly carried out. For this purpose, this paper considers the nature of audit, the meaning and function of audit and inspection in the democracy and constitutionalism, the modern trend of audit, and the change of the relevant legal system in Korea.