Accountability and controllability of local government bodies under the conditions of the reform decentralization of power

Abstract

The article substantiates the relationship between the principles of accountability and control of local self-government bodies in the conditions of the reform of power decentralization. The legal support of these principles, as well as their correlation, is analyzed.
 Issues of controllability and accountability of local self-government bodies are actualized in the conditions of decentralization of power in Ukraine. The role of the state in the management of community affairs is significantly narrowed, as is the control of state authorities over the legality of the activities of local self-government bodies. This, in turn, shifts the burden of such control to the community, civil society institutions, and individuals and legal entities. In such conditions, the development of public control in the state as a whole and complex institution is actualized, as well as the content of accountability as a control tool is transformed and expanded.
 Increasing the influence, expansion of resources and powers of local self-government bodies requires appropriate balancing on a democratic basis. Accountability and control become important in the context of ensuring the responsibility of local self-government bodies, the strengthening of which is due to the decentralization of power.
 Accountability as a principle of local self-government is not limited exclusively to the obligation to periodically report on the activities of municipal bodies or officials, it is a system of specific relations between accountable and authorized subjects, the goal of which is the real achievement of openness and democracy. Controllability means that the activity of a certain subject is subject to control - by state bodies, civil society, and internal control subjects.
 These democratic principles of local self-government did not receive effective and perfect legal implementation mechanisms. The discretionary powers of local self-government bodies allow for the regulation of relevant procedures in the charters of territorial communities, but this does not happen due to their low initiative.