EFFICIENCY AND MAGISTRATES' COURTS EXPENDITURE
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1983.tb00524.x |
| Date | 01 September 1983 |
| Author | ROD MORGAN,ROGER BOWLES |
| Published date | 01 September 1983 |
300
PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION
they forced certain changes of director when these would have been willingly kept
by their ministers who now seem to miss them.
The changes are major ones, for the former majority had been in power for
23
years. But losing a discretionary job does not automatically mean leaving the
administration.
No
doubt some did, voluntarily or not, and particularly among the
prefects. But for many (prefects and ambassadors)
it
was only a simple transfer to
another location; a number
of
directors found other discretionary jobs, or went
back to their original corps. ’Spoils system’ is not the proper term for what has
been happening in France.
Today’s President of the Republic has denounced ’the progression of the
Giscardian state in the mechanism of the country through infiltration in the
administration. Since Napoleon
111,
better cannot be found’
(Ici et Maintenant,
1980). At the same time, Giscard stated at a press conference on June 14,1978:
’I
am
looking for the ‘best’ for each job.
I
do not know
if
the ’best’ have a political
preference in common.’ Declarations now being made dorrespond to these. A
former minister, speaking of the Left, stated: ’We are being drawn more and more
to an organized and institutionalized infiltration
of
high level administration by
the dominant political parties
’(Le
Monde,
November
6,
1981). Should it be
understood then, that according to who is being judged, the best can be found on
the Right or
on
the Left?
A
double mistake has been made: it has been forgotten
that
it
is in these ’posts hhich are given at the government’s discretion’ that our
’political civil servants’ may be found (politische Beamte), and that the preceding
Republics used them in the same way. However, the weakening of the state under
these Republics had often caused the administration to take over from political
power and to impose its own candidates. It has also been forgotten that principal
administration posts cannot be kept apart from what is political. The
presidentialization of the Fifth Republic has increasingly led the head of state to
truly exercize his power in high level civil service nominations. The separation
between politics and administration, an intangible and rigid dogma, is not and
never will be anything more than a myth when applied to the high level civil
service.
JEAN-LUC BODIGUEL
Maitre de recherche at the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, Fondation
Nationale de Sciences Politiques
EFFICIENCY AND MAGISTRATES’ COURTS EXPENDITURES
Control over the magistrates’ courts
budget
The Public Accounts Committee
(PAC)
recently expressed concern regarding the
administration
of
magistrates’ courts (1981, paras.
33-38).
The Home Office,
responsible for 80% of court costs, had admitted it was not staffed to carry out
inspections of court activities. Test examinations by the Comptroller and Auditor
Public Administration
Vol.
61
Autumn
1983
(300-307)
0
1983
Royal Institute
of
Public Administration
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