A Specific Form of State Control or Issues of Compliance and Integrity in Public Sector Organisations

Abstract

We have a wide range of literature sources on the state’s control functions, as it is a prominent issue in both national and international literature that how and by what means the state’s will – which can take many faces, may be a law, a non-normative regulator, an authority decision or even a public administration measure – is possible to be enforced. It is also crucial for state-owned business organizations to ensure compliance like private sector companies do. At present, there is no independent regulator in the national legal system regarding compliance control functions of publicly owned business organizations, therefore some of the rules concerning the internal control functions of the public sector are applicable in this area, as well. The question is interesting because state-owned business organizations are partly subject to property law, partly to civil law and partly to administrative law, so control over them is basically by ownership, in a closer sense by civil law – known as the guarantee of legitimate operation of legal persons – or may be policy, sectoral, public finance and authority control. The integrity of such organizations, which is closest to the compliance function known in the private sector, has been at the forefront of the State Audit Office’s investigations in recent years. In our study, these terms are clarified and the characteristics of the current national regulation are examined.