The evident incompetence of central government to exert powers of financial control on local government

Abstract

Central Government is in fact exercising the power of «financial protection» of local governments belonging to selfgoverning regions (comunidades autónomas) whose founding Statutes do not specifically mention such a task. Therefore, when national legislator generally entrusts an inspection act to the level of government that has been assigned financial protection of local councils, the Ministry of Finance assumes that it has been alluded to. This leads him to assume an execution competence which is crutial for the delimitation of local competences such as the mandatory and binding financial sustainability report provided for in article 7.4 of the Act regulating the bases of the local government. This situation in fact contrasts openly with the constitutional system of distribution of powers, as it has been interpreted by the Constitutional Court with respect to financial protection, in general, and the aforementioned mandatory and binding sustainability report, in particular. Contrary to what happens in practice, it is undisputed within that jurisprudence that Central Government has not been attributed financial protection to any local entity and, correlatively, that all the selfgoverning regions have it, as holders of the powers of execution in matters of local government.