Prescription And External Control: The Federal Supreme Court's (STF) Jurisprudence On Reconfiguring The Incentives Of The Federal Court Of Accounts (TCU)
Federal Court of Accounts (TCU). Prescriptibility. Administrative Law of Fear. Public Choice Theory. Federal Supreme Court (STF). TCU Resolution No. 344/2022.
Dysfunctions in external control are rooted in "romantic" ideological premises regarding the protection of the public treasury. When present in the daily work of public managers, fear can be a cause of inefficiency as much as a product of unlimited oversight. It is necessary to balance the conditions for oversight with the procedural rights and due process guarantees of those supervised by the Courts of Accounts. Prescriptibility (the statute of limitations) is a corollary of legal certainty and the right to a full defense. For a long time, its application was relativized, until the STF (Federal Supreme Court), in response, began to establish temporal limits on external control activities. The objective of this study is to analyze how the STF's jurisprudence on prescription has reconfigured the institutional incentives of the TCU (Brazil's Federal Court of Accounts). The study was conducted through bibliographical and documentary research, and the proposed analysis is based on theoretical frameworks from Public Choice Theory and Legal Theory. The TCU's response, delivered via normative acts and rulings, revealed an effort to preserve its own competencies for perpetual prosecution. By regulating the matter according to its own institutional utility, this reaction calls the capacity for self-regulation by Courts of Accounts into question.