預算年度性原則之研究－與法國法之比較

預算年度性原則，係要求政府之預算應以固定之年度作為基礎，原則上一年辦理一次，以達到國會對預算之控制審查所應具備的規律性以及實效性。這樣的原則表面上看來只是個不甚起眼的技術性要求，事實上卻牽涉到諸多預算財政法制中的根本性問題。例如，為了避免國會在議決預算之際因為政治因素而可能出現的預算僵局現象，在不同國家憲政制度中經常存在著若干因應規定。而預算僵局之所以會發生，基本上就是因為預算具有年度性這樣的特徵而來。在另一方面，既然預算包含著國會對於行政部門歲入及歲出的授權，則預算年度終了尚未被實現的歲入及歲出，是否就意味著因為欠缺授權依據而當然違法？或者反過來說，行政部門可不可以因為預算逐年授權的麻煩，因而提出多年期預算？這樣的討論，不僅具有預算法制之意義，同時也在公共會計、出納相關法制，甚至憲法領域中衍生出不少值得深入探究的問題。本文擬以法國法制為經、我國法制為緯，比較論述因為預算年度性之要求在不同法規範領域所可能展現之具體面貌、思考此一制度之憲法意義，以作為預算財政法制相關問題深入研究之基礎。同時也特別指出，預算年度性整體而言並非僵硬而嚴格的預算法原則，得以容有諸多例外的存在。

關鍵字

預算；預算年度；會計年度；預算僵局；憲法；行政立法關係

並列摘要

The principle of budget annuality, which requires government's budgeting to be made on an annual basis and to be exercised once a year, aims to ensure the regularity and effectiveness of the Congress' budget review. Such principle looks like an insignificant technical requirement. However, it in fact involves many fundamental issues under budget and fiscal laws. For example, many countries' constitutional systems provide certain rules to prevent budget deadlock resulting from political factors during the Congress’ budget reviews. However, such budget annuality requirement often reversely become the cause of budget deadlocks. On one hand, since budget decisions include the Congress' authorization for the administrative department's revenue and expenditure, does it mean that any unrealized revenue or expenditure by year end would become illegal due to lack of authorization? Or, adversely, should the administrative department be allowed to propose multi-year budget bills, to avoid the trouble of seeking appropriation authorization year by year? Said discussions not only present a meaningful issue under budget laws, but also lead to many issues worthy of further study under public accounting, treasuring, and constitutional law fields. This article will refer to and compare French and Taiwanese laws to elaborate the possible phenomena of budget annuality requirement under different legal regimes and to deliberate the constitutional law meaning of such requirement, with the hope that this article may provide a stepping stone for future study on budget and fiscal laws. And the author also points that principle of annuality is not a rigid rule, there are always exceptions on budget practices.