Procedures and Practices for
Legal Decisions and Opinions
assistance. GAO’s protocols for audit, evaluative, and investigative work are covered in GAO’s Agency Protocols, GAO-05-35G (Washington, D. C.: Oct. 2004) and GAO’s Congressional Protocols, GAO-04-310G (Washington, D. C.: July 2004). The procedures governing bid protests of a solicitation for offers by a government agency or of the award of a contract are not found in this document, but in 4 C. F. R. part 21.
- Approach to Rendering Legal Decisions and Opinions
When rendering legal decisions and opinions, OGC has a proud tradition of providing independent analyses and applications of the law. Importantly, through OGC decisions and opinions on the use of appropriated funds, the GAO provides the standards necessary to help ensure that taxpayers’ funds are lawfully obligated and expended and faithfully accounted for according to the law. To achieve these objectives, OGC bases its decisions on its best judgment of what the law requires, not on an advocate’s crafting of plausible arguments in support of a particular point of view. OGC strives to produce thorough, well-researched, and well-reasoned decisions and opinions, informed by agency explanation of pertinent facts and its views on the law, which respect the difficult judgments Congress must make concerning the use of the nation’s resources, the rights and obligations of the accountable officers of the government, and the roles and responsibilities of coordinate branches of our government.
- Requesting a Legal Decision or Opinion
By statute, accountable officers and heads of agencies and agency components are entitled to an advance decision of the Comptroller General concerning the obligation, expenditure, and accounting of
