On the issue of organizing and implementing public budget control in Latin American countries: a comparative legal analysis

The public budget control is one of the most important elements of the modern system of public governance, ensuring the implementation of the principles of transparency and accountability of government authorities to society. In Latin American countries, characterized by a high degree of socio-economic inequality and historically established distrust of public institutions, this institute takes on particular significance. The aim of the study is to conduct a comprehensive comparative legal analysis of the public budget control in the specified countries, to determine its essential characteristics, organizational models, and to identify the factors influencing the effectiveness of this mechanism within the public governance system. The scientific novelty lies in the systematization and typologization of existing approaches to the normative consolidation and practical implementation of public budget control in twenty countries in the region based on criteria that include legal regulation, institutional design, and the level of real citizen participation. For the first time within the framework of a comprehensive study, a periodization of the evolution of this institute is proposed. The methodological basis is based on the comparative legal method, which allowed for the comparison of heterogeneous legal systems; the formal-legal method, used for analyzing specific norms; and the systemic-functional approach, due to which public control is considered as an element of the overall system of state financial control. The main hypothesis is based on the assumption of a stable correlation between the level of democratic traditions, the degree of development of civil society institutions, and the effectiveness of legislatively enshrined forms of public budget control in Latin American countries, while the formal consolidation of control mechanisms does not guarantee their real effectiveness. These countries recognize the importance of citizen participation in the budget process; however, the degree of integration of public control varies significantly. The most developed institutions (Colombia, Brazil, Chile) are moving towards the creation of specialized digital platforms and empowering public structures with the right to initiate audits, while in several countries (Paraguay, Venezuela), the mechanisms remain declarative. The results of the study can be used to improve legislation and law enforcement practices in the field of budget control in post-Soviet countries, as well as to forecast the development vectors of open government institutions in Latin America. It has been proven that a key condition for effectiveness is the presence of an independent external state audit system, with which public structures interact.