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Art. 105. A Chamber of Accounts is entrusted with the examination and clearance of the accounts of the general administration and of all the accountants with relation to public revenues.
Its organisation, the exercise of its powers and the mode of appointment of its members are regulated by law.
The Chamber of Accounts keeps a watch to ensure that there is no excess over the budget in any item of expenditure.
No transfer from one section of the budget to another can be made except in accordance with a law to that effect.
However, the members of the Government can operate, in their departments, transfers of surpluses from one article to another in the same section, on condition of justifying the same before the Members of Parliament.
The Chamber of Accounts decides on the accounts of the different government departments and is entrusted with gathering to this effect all information and all accounting documents required. The general accounts of the State are submitted to the Members of Parliament with the observations of the Chamber of Accounts.
Art. 6. The resolutions of the Chamber of Accounts are adopted by majority vote and on a written or oral report to be presented by an advisor, chosen by the Speaker. The latter conducts, if required, the discussion and is the last to cast his vote. The other members vote in their order of seniority, starting with the junior-most. The decisions are noted in minutes drawn up by the rapporteur and signed by himself and the Speaker.
The despatches are signed by the Speaker and countersigned by the Secretary.
The latter draws up the minutes of the meetings.
Art. 5. The Chamber of Accounts is entrusted with a supervision of material, which would enable it to satisfy itself that all the existing movable goods acquired by the State are being used and maintained.
An inventory is made of the movable property belonging to the State, by means of the Estate office.
The inventories are checked at the end of each year and each time that the official in charge is transferred.
The inventories and the checking reports are to be supervised by the Chamber of Accounts.
The latter is authorised to order on the spot inspections and to demand from the departments and officials concerned all the information that it considers necessary for the exercise of this control.
An overall inventory is to be made of all the buildings belonging to the State and to the Social Security services as well as, if required, to the districts and to the pubic establishments. A copy will be submitted to the House of Representatives and to the Chamber of Accounts.
At the end of each year, a verification of these inventories will be made, and if required, a supplementary inventory will be drawn up.
Art. 6. The Chamber of Accounts will express its view on all matters that will be communicated to it to this effect by a member of the Government.
Art. 7. The Chamber of Accounts will attach to its observations on the overall accounts an analysis of those important matters that have given rise to a controversy, as well as of those facts of special importance that its verifications have made it possible to bring out in the course of the discharge of the Budget. This analysis will be printed and circulated to the members of the House of Representatives. As a matter of course, the Chamber of Accounts will immediately point out to the House of Representatives all the important questions of note, among others, the defects that it would have noted in the technical formulation of the Budget.
Art. 11. The Chamber of Accounts is made up of a President, two counsellors and two substitute counsellors.
Art. 12. The Grand Duke appoints to their posts the President, the counsellors and the substitute counsellors out of a list of three candidates for each vacancy to be submitted by the House of Representatives.
The release or the dismissal of the incumbents thus appointed can only be done with the consent of the House of Representatives.
Art. 13. In the event of a vacancy or an unavoidable absence, the functions of the President are exercised by the counsellor who is senior-most in rank.
In the event of an unavoidable absence of one or of both of the counsellors, these absences in the Chamber of Accounts will be made up for by the substitute counsellors.
Art. 14. The junior-most of the counsellors will perform the functions of a secretary. In the event of an unavoidable absence, and in the event of the post being vacant, the President can take on one of the controllers to act as the secretary.
Art. 16. The President, the counsellors and the substitute counsellors cannot be related to each other or allied by marriage to each other or to a member of the Government up to the third degree inclusive. An incompatibility is pronounced on the last named, or whoever enters into a marriage relationship to this degree. It ceases, if the relative by blood or by marriage accepts to retire from service.
Art. 17. The President and the members of the Chamber of Accounts cannot be State accountants, nor participate directly or indirectly in any enterprise, furnish supplies or be connected in any manner whatsoever in which their interests would be found to be contrary to those of the State, except by virtue of a right that would have fallen due to them through succession, nor be present at the deliberations on matters that concern them, their relatives or those allied to them by marriage up to the third degree inclusive.
This last clause is not applicable to the deliberations concerning the salaries or other fixed emoluments of the members of the Chamber of Accounts or of their relatives or those allied to them by marriage.
Art. 18. Before taking up their posts, the President and the counsellors of the Chamber of Accounts are sworn in by the Grand Duke or his representative, taking an oath in the following terms
"I swear that I will be loyal to the Grand Duke, will obey the Constitution and the laws of the country and will fulfil to the best of my honour and my conscience the duties that have been entrusted to me. I swear it."
Art. 19. The substitute counsellors have a right to receive fees as fixed by decree of the Grand Duke.
Art. 8. When, on the close of a financial year, such as defined in the preceding article, certain Budget allocations are under heavy strain in favour of creditors of the State for expenses entered into and being executed, those parts of allocations still required for settling the credits are carried over to the subsequent financial year and form within the Budget a special section entitled: Carry forward from earlier financial years.
The breakdown of these operations is verified beforehand by the Chamber of Accounts.
The Government may, after the final end of the financial year, continue to avail of the allocations to be carried over to the subsequent financial year. The special payment orders concerning these are subject to the same rules as the regular orders except that the budget appropriation for these expenses will take place from the start of the new financial year.
Transfers cannot be made in the event of postponements of financial years.
Art. 10 Every representative entrusted with the handling of public money constitutes an accountant of the State. No handling of this money can be managed by any but a representative placed under the orders of the Ministry of Finance, held responsible towards it for its management and answerable to the Chamber of Accounts.
Art. 14. In accordance with the law of 5 September 1807, State funds carry a preferential claim and a legal mortgage on the belongings of every accountant, cashier, agent or employee whatsoever entrusted with handling of public moneys.
Art. 15. This preferential claim and mortgage can be reduced by the Ministry of Finance to cover a part of the belongings of the accountant, without the allocation against security being in any way reduced. The Chamber of Accounts and the concerned department will come to an agreed opinion on the matter.
By dispensation to Art. 7 of the law of 5 September 1807, the tax collectors of the registration and those who maintain the mortgages are exempted from being called upon respectively to automatically make a registration of the preferential claim and of the legal mortgage pertaining to the Treasury. This registration will only be undertaken on the requisition of the Ministry of Finance, which also has the right to withdraw it.
Art. 19. The Ministry of Finance can grant, by a justified ruling, some time limits for the recovery of the dues, when the tax collector justifies having acted at the proper time with all the necessary diligence to conduct the recovery.
He can similarly grant an acquittal for errors or omissions of any perception whatsoever at the expense of the public funds, both to the tax collectors themselves as to the officials entrusted with the immediate supervision of the tax collectors and who may have neglected to exercise this control at the proper time.
When, in the course of a financial year, the acquittals of the second type will have reached 2% of the amount of the revenues gathered by the respective office during the second complete financial year, subsequent acquittals of the same kind will not be granted during the current financial year, concerning revenues of the same nature, except on prior advice from the Chamber of Accounts.
Art. 25. The Chamber of Accounts stamps the payment orders, while joining to its sanction the observations that it would like to make against the payments sanctioned, both from the point of view of the material accuracy of the documents as from that of the legality and the validity of the debts.
If the person authorised to pass the accounts finds the observations of the Chamber of Accounts to be unfounded, he refers them to the Government Counsel.
If the Chamber of Accounts persists in its view, contrary to the opinion of the Counsel, the matter is referred to the litigations committee of the Council of State, which gives a ruling under its direct jurisdiction and whose decision has to be accepted by the person authorised to pass accounts and by the Chamber of Accounts.
The Chamber of Accounts will obtain a communication of the memorandums. It will present its eventual observations to the litigations committee within a period of fifteen days at the latest.
Art. 26. In the event that the documents submitted to the Chamber of Accounts give rise to serious doubts over facts on which depends the legality or the regularity of an expense, the Chamber of Accounts is authorised to order inspections by one or several agents that it delegates for this purpose.
The results of these inspections will be communicated to the Government.
Art. 27. When the payments sanctioned for an article on the Budget have reached an amount equal to the funds for this article, including transfers, the Chamber of Accounts will give no further sanctions for this same article.
Art. 28. Unless there is an absolute necessity, duly noted, and except for the event mentioned in the preceding article, the Chamber of Accounts is under an obligation, in the framework of this responsibility as also by law, to sanction, within a period of ten days, the payment orders submitted to it.
Art. 29. When there is extreme urgency for making a payment and it is such that any delay could compromise the working of the State and be detrimental to law and order, the payment order can be provisionally issued following an explained opinion of the Government Counsel and the heard opinion of the Chamber of Accounts, to be given without delay. The advice of the Government Counsel will be the one that will prevail for the Consolidated Fund and by the receivers of sanctions of the Chamber of Accounts. The provisional payment orders will be presented for bearing the stamp of the Finance Minister if they have not been issued by him. The Chamber of Accounts immediately takes cognisance of these and notes down the expenses subject to subsequent justification.
At the end of the financial year, the Government will submit to the House of Representatives a statement of the provisional payment orders which will have been issued against the advice of the Chamber of Accounts while indicating the reason in support of each of these payment orders.
Art. 30. In less urgent cases, funds can be put at the disposal of a State official or of a trustworthy person for a public service to be conducted under State control, as well as for normal urgent defence service expenses, or other similar expenditure.
As a general rule, these funds will be put at the disposal only of accountants who are public servants.
Exceptionally, any other trustworthy person may be appointed as a special accountant by a decision of the Government at a meeting of the Council, while deciding on the specific reasons for this exceptional measure.
The recipient will render an account of the utilisation of these funds to the Chamber of Accounts within a time limit to be indicated in the payment order and which cannot exceed the duration of the financial year.
The payment order will be stamped subject to this condition by the Chamber of Accounts.
The payment by special accountants is only authorised for expenses which, by their nature, the smallness of their amounts, their urgency or on account of the large number of recipients, justify a simpler and quicker procedure than the ordinary mode of direct discharge.
The amounts that may not have been utilised at the close of the financial year for which they had been allocated will be repaid into the Consolidated Fund of the State in the month following the close of the year. The accountants are obliged to do this, should the need arise, by means of restoration rolls drawn up in accordance with article 40 hereafter.
Those accountants who will have neglected to furnish their account in the prescribed time limit will be ordered to do so by the person authorized to pass accounts, within a new time frame that he will fix, which in no event can exceed one month. Information concerning this will be given to the Chamber of Accounts.
In the event of failure to present the account within this period, those guilty of delay will be proceeded against by the issuing of a restoration roll, unless the amounts are resanctioned for their benefit and justification for their utilisation will be given subsequently. The same procedure will be followed with regard to accountants who have failed to regularise their accounts within the aforementioned time limits, according to the observations of the Chamber of Accounts. In the different cases mentioned above, no new funds will be discharged for the benefit of the same accountant before the backlog has been decisively regularised.
The Chamber of Accounts will give a ruling on the accounts of the special accountants within a period of two months from the time of the production of documents. It will join to its annual report a detailed report on the state of these accounts.
The basis of the allowance that may be due to the special accountants will be decided upon in the general rules governing the accounts department of the State.
Art. 32. The Minister of Finance can, if the Budget provides for the necessary funds, authorise the advancing of money for:
a) expenses fixed on salary payrolls;
b) expenses drawn up in foreign exchange;
c) expenses on foreign travel.
For payments concerning a), the advance is subject to prior sanction by the Chamber of Accounts.
For those concerning c), information is given about this to the Chamber of Accounts.
Art. 34. The tax collectors will make, without the authorizations provided for in article 22, and in accordance with what will be prescribed by the general rulings concerning the accountancy services of the State, payment:
1. for urgent legal expenses;
2. for expenses for proceedings before the Council of State, the Litigations Committee, expenses for proceedings before the Council for discipline (law of 14 July 1932), for allowances for the members of the tribunals arbitrating on matters of social security, and on the matter of hiring of private employees, as well as for expenses of proceedings before similar special courts of law;
3. for deposits;
4. for expenses on legal proceedings concerning the recovery of taxes and other State revenues;
5. for special community surcharges;
6. for pay orders for discharge, reduction, rebate or moderation of taxes;
7. for rebates due to the tax collectors of the State;
8. for direct tax settlements due to the estate of the State;
9. for sums wrongfully collected which are to be restored to the persons concerned;
10. for the shares due to persons detained in prison and in the beggar's home on the returns for their work;
11. for the basic expenses of the customs department for the exclusive benefit of the Grand-Duchy;
12. for some categories of administrative expenses to be determined by an order of the Grand-Duchy, the Council of State and the Chamber of Accounts as well.
Art. 40. The payments which will have been admitted to have been wrongfully made, will give rise to restoration lists which will be issued by the Minister of the concerned department, countersigned by the Chamber of accounts and will be made operative by the Ministry of Finance. Their recovery will be made in accordance with the method adopted by the department in charge of receipts.
Art. 54. The operations for investment and for withdrawal of the available funds, as well as the issuing and reimbursement of Treasury Bonds will be brought without delay to the knowledge of the Chamber of Accounts.
Art. 57. The decisions of the Chamber of Accounts against accountants are operative. They can be referred to the Litigations Committee of the Council of State, which gives a ruling in its capacity as the highest and final legal authority.
Any appeal against the rulings of the Chamber of Accounts must be formulated, under pain of debarment, within a period of three months, starting from the time of notification of the ruling.
Art. 59. When the State budget is presented for vote to the House of Representatives, it will be accompanied by the general accounts of the last but one completed financial year and by the observations made on it by the Chamber of Accounts, by a statement of account of the last completed financial year and by a similar statement for the current financial year.
Art. 70. The control of the Chamber of Accounts will extend to all the operations of the Treasury, to the management of the Consolidated Fund and to the accountants of the State. This control will be exercised by means of statements of account or other documents whose production is prescribed by the present law and by rulings to be enacted.
Art. 1. The implementation of the budget of revenues is specially placed, apart from the exceptions enacted by the law on the accountancy of the State and the present ruling:
c) in those of the Chamber of Accounts, as regards the control of the recoveries made, of the incoming amounts of definite income of the accounts department.
The implementation of the budget of expenses is incumbent on the members of Government, as regards their respective departments, on the Ministry of Finance as regards the general accounts and on the Chamber of Accounts as regards the control over the sanctioning and the payment of the expenses.
Art. 2. The Ministry of Finance informs the Chamber of Accounts of all the definite revenues for each financial year separately by means:
1. of a statement of account which it communicates at the beginning of the year for all those revenues whose amount to be recovered is known to it at this period;
2. of statements of account that it sends to it successively in the course of the year, for the other revenues of the kind for which it has gathered knowledge subsequently, such as those resulting from lists of tax dues that have become liable or from any other documents.
It sends to it, additionally, in the month of the appropriation, a copy of the sales proceedings, of the tenders and the minutes of tender invitations with specifications, concerning the transfer or the renting out of properties, rights or revenues of the State.
Statements of accounts are not communicated to the Chamber of Accounts concerning the head of revenues whose amount is payable as soon as it is fixed. The Minister of Finance ensures that these revenues are recovered and recorded, without delay, by the respective tax collectors, in accordance with the instructions in force.
Art. 13. The Chamber of Accounts is regularly informed of the provisions concerning salaries, additional allowances and increments, pensions and all other fixed expenses, for the period for which the expense is incurred, of the names, first names and official positions of the beneficiaries, and of the transfers that have taken place. These facts are put together in a reference register.
The Chamber of Accounts also receives a copy of the quotations, specifications, contracts, transactions, authorizations and other documents whose end result is an expense that is to be sanctioned.
Art. 20. The sanctions are passed while deducting these amounts from the budget allocations after clearance by the Chamber of Accounts.
Art. 21. In the event of clearance the Chamber of Accounts preserves the documents produced to support the sanctions.
Art. 22. From April 30 of the year following that which is designated as the financial year, the Chamber of Accounts puts no further countersignatures to any payment order on the budget of that financial year.
The ministerial departments will cease, from April 20, to present for countersignature to the Chamber of Accounts any payment orders ascribable to this same financial year.
Art. 24. (para 1). If there is a likelihood of a payment order cleared by the Chamber of Accounts being cancelled before the payment is made, the annulment will take place through an order of the person authorised to pass accounts along with justifications, and it will be despatched to the Treasury office and to the Chamber of Accounts. The relevant credit in the budget will then be restored to the position prior to the clearance.
Art. 25. If the Chamber of Accounts, after having cleared a pay order notices, before having parted with the documents, that the clearance was not justified, it can annul its decision.
Art. 42. The recovery rolls for surcharges paid out by way of urgent legal expenses, will be sent, along with the reimbursement pay orders issued for the benefit of the paying official, to the Chamber of Accounts, for countersignature, and then to the Ministry of Finance, to be rendered ready for implementation.
The Chamber of Accounts will keep note of the documents in order to be in a position to monitor the incoming refunds.
Art. 46. The regularisation of the other payments made by virtue of article 34 of the law on the accounts department of the State, will take place by means of discharge certificates that the receivers will issue against a receipt, to the Treasury office. To obtain a discharge, the tax collectors will address, before the 15th of each month, to the Ministry of the relevant department, through their head of department, slips in three copies, joining to them receipts, authorizations for payment and other supporting documents.
The Minister of the department will send two copies of each slip, carrying his countersignature, to the Chamber of Accounts. The latter will deliver, if required, within 10 days, the discharge certificate at the bottom of one copy which will be returned to the same Minister and transmitted by him to the Treasury office of the Ministry of Finance, for countersignature, in the event that the expense has not originated from his department. The Treasury office sends it to the tax collector through his administrative head.
The amount of the discharge will be recorded as having been deducted from the funds to which the expenses pertain and this will be indicated on the slips.
Art. 47. If one or several articles of a list are not accepted by the Chamber of Accounts, the documents are returned to the Minister of the department who, if he approves the rejection, invites the tax collector to regularise them and come again with a new list.
If the Minister of the department does not find the rejection justified enough, he asks the tax collector to produce, for each rejected article, a declaration in two copies, for the purpose of issuing a pay order in accordance with article 23 of the law on the accounts department of the State.
The declarations will be in accordance with the clauses of article 17 above.
Art. 50. The securities to be deposited by virtue of article 46, No. 6 and 7 of the law on public accounts are received directly by the Consolidated Fund of the State, against delivery of a receipt which must be countersigned by the Treasury office.
No restoration of securities will take place without the authorization of the Ministry of Finance, which authorization must bear the countersignature of the Treasury office.
The exchange of one security against another similar security of the same value is exempt from this authorization.
Every deposit and restoration operation is brought to the knowledge of the Chamber of Accounts by the Treasury office.
Art. 51. The Treasury office and the Chamber of Accounts maintain an account of the operations conducted. At least once a year, these two departments will carry out a reconciliation of their books with a view to ensuring that they are in agreement.
Art. 54. For every unaudited financial year the officials of the revenue services directly communicate to their head of administration, before the 8th of each month, an account in four copies, of the operations that have taken place during the past month. The account will be accompanied by the payment receipts concerning these as well as by a statement of the position of the funds.
The form of the account will be determined, in accordance with the requirements of the departments and the needs of supervision, by the Minister of Finance, the heads of administration and the Chamber of Accounts whose opinions will all be taken together.
Art. 56. The heads of administration ensure that a statement of monthly accounts is drawn up, per financial year and per article of the budget, which they send, before the date of the 14th which follows the receipt of the accounts, to the Minister of Finance, while joining to it three copies of each account as well as the receipts for payment.
Art. 57. The Treasury office gets an entry made of the accounts, keeps one copy of the same and despatches all the other documents, with any observations it may eventually want to make, before the 20th, to the Chamber of Accounts.
Art. 58. After verification and recording, the Chamber of Accounts returns to the accountants, before the end of the month and through the heads of administration, one copy of the accounts with its discharge appended to it.
Art. 67. In the month of January, the Consolidated Fund submits in three copies to the Chamber of Accounts, through the Ministry of Finance, a statement of its management of funds for the previous year. This explanation is divided into two distinct parts; one presenting the operations in cash, the other the operations in stocks and bonds.
One of the communications of the declaration, accompanied by the decision of the Chamber of Accounts, is sent back to the Consolidated Fund.
Art. 68. The Treasury office addresses to the Chamber of Accounts, in two despatches, the statement of the revenues and of the expenditure drawn up after the end of each month. This statement is accompanied by all the supporting documents, by the monthly statement of the Consolidated Fund, as well as by a table giving a recapitulation of all the operations of the Treasury.
Art.69. The Chamber of Accounts will conduct a scrutiny and a comparison of the signatures to ensure their validity in accordance with the instructions in force, will verify that nothing has been paid in excess of what was due, that the stamp formality has been fulfilled, wherever prescribed, and that the documents have not been falsified.
It will communicate its eventual observations to the Treasury office which will give the necessary explanations or will ensure that the necessary rectifications are made.
After taking cognisance of the correctness of the reports, the Chamber of Accounts draws up the monthly statements of the amount of expenses likely to be incurred from the budget of the State, and communicates a copy of this to the Ministry of Finance.
Art. 70. On the expiry of each quarter, a reconciliation will be made of the books of accounts of the Treasury office and of the Chamber of Accounts, with a view to noting their conformity with all the revenue and expense operations conducted during the past quarter.
In the event of divergence in the records, the errors will be immediately sought out and rectified.
The result of these quarterly verifications will be recorded in a statement.
Art. 71. The Finance Minister presents to the Chamber of Accounts, in two copies, and before the 1st November following the final closure of a financial year, the general account of the revenues and of the expenses of this financial year, attaching to it the accounts from the tax collectors along with supporting documents.
Art. 72. The Chamber of Accounts draws up, before the following 1st of April, the accounts from the tax collectors, sends a copy of these to the accountant and another to the Ministry of Finance. It preserves the third copy in its archives.
The Chamber of Accounts submits at the same time to the Finance ministry its observations on the general account, while returning a copy of the account to it.
Art. 73. The loan or conversion debentures, as well as Treasury bonds, will be signed by the Minister of Finance, countersigned by the head of the Treasury office and stamped for checking by the Chamber of Accounts.
The Chamber of Accounts keeps a copy of the Public Debt account. It ensures that transfers and reimbursements as well as new loans, are accurately recorded in it.
The situation concerning the Public Debt is published every year as an annexe to the budget statutes.
Art. 74. The Finance minister will come to a decision, to be communicated through special instructions, after hearing the opinions of the Chamber of Accounts and the heads of administration, on the ledgers to be maintained and the pattern of the books to be used by the government offices, the Consolidated Fund of the State and the tax collectors, so as to ensure the accuracy of the revenue and expenditure accounts.
The Chamber of Accounts will settle on the same ledgers in a manual of rules, to be approved by the Finance Minister.
While waiting for the instructions and rules in question to be enacted, the provisions at present in force continue to prevail.
Art. 33. If the person authorized to pass accounts finds the observations of the Chamber of Accounts to be unfounded, he refers them to the Government Counsel.
If the Chamber persists in its opinion, contrary to the opinion of the Counsel, the matter is referred to the Litigations Committee which gives a final ruling and whose decision the person authorized to pass accounts and the Chamber of Accounts have to accept.
The Chamber of Accounts will obtain communication of the memoranda. It will present its eventual observations to the Litigations Committee at the latest within a period of fifteen days.
