Drawing together the book's analyses of public finance law and parliamentary constitutionalism, this chapter argues against the descriptive validity of the idea of parliamentary control of public money and observes the implications of that argument for democratic control of public finance. It begins by settling on an analytical framework for assessing whether parliament does indeed 'control' public finance built upon an idea of 'financial self-rule'. That framework is then applied to the legal and institutional practices which were observed in earlier chapters: concluding that parliaments cannot be said to have control of public finance in any studied jurisdiction. After discussing how broadly that conclusion can be generalised, the chapter evaluates different descriptive models of public finance in parliamentary constitutions: executive control, financial interdependence and parliamentary ratification. The chapter concludes that the latter 'ratification' model is most compelling and explains why that model secures a low level of financial self-rule.

Focuses on consumer protection in the context of energy market reform. Given the region’s energy poverty, consumer protection must be placed at the centre of the reforms. From a procedural perspective, public consultation could make an important contribution to the public acceptability of tariff reforms, but this would require a frank admission of the real causes of energy insecurity in Central Asia, including the highly sensitive topics of corruption and discrimination in favour of strategic enterprises. Judicial practice in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan demonstrates that courts have a role to play in enforcing consumers’ procedural rights. In addition to procedural protection, subsidies are necessary to protect the most vulnerable segments of the population against tariff increases. However, subsidizing the use of energy traps consumers into energy dependency and thus exacerbates the financial impact of future tariff increases. In order to break the vicious circle of low energy pricing that currently undermines Central Asian energy security, subsidies must be channelled away from energy consumption and into efficiency improvements.