The article is dedicated to the problem of defining the limits of public oversight in Latin American countries. Based on a comparative legal analysis of the constitutions and legislation of all states in the region, it has been revealed that the multiplicity of terminology ("public oversight," "people's oversight," "social oversight," "civil monitoring," "popular inspection") causes differences in the institutional limits of oversight activities. It is argued that the fundamental problem of defining the limits is generated by the mutually exclusive interests of the subjects and objects of oversight. A universal mechanism for resolving the problem is proposed, based on the principles of proportionality, judicial arbitration, and "sliding limits," while considering the constitutional principle of the people as the only source of power. The aim of the research is to identify and theoretically justify the limits of public oversight in Latin American countries, as well as to develop a universal mechanism for resolving the problem of defining these limits, taking into account the constitutional principle of popular sovereignty enshrined in all 20 states of the region. The methodological foundation of the research includes: an integrative approach; a comparative legal method; institutional analysis; historical-legal method; systemic-structural method; decolonial methodology; case study method; statistical methods; and legal modeling method. The main hypothesis of the research is that the problem of defining the limits of public oversight in Latin American countries is not so much a legal one as it is political-institutional and structurally-historical in nature. The mutually exclusive interests of the oversight subjects (the desire for maximum breadth of oversight powers) and the oversight objects (the desire to minimize oversight impact) create a situation of perpetual institutional conflict. The resolution of this conflict cannot be achieved through a simple unification of the conceptual apparatus, as the variety of terms ("public oversight," "people's oversight," "social oversight," "civil monitoring") reflects deep differences in the models of interaction between the state and civil society, shaped by various historical trajectories of development, including the legacy of colonialism, authoritarian regimes, and post-dictatorial democratic transitions. The proposed mechanism for resolving the problem is based on the principles of proportionality, judicial arbitration, and "sliding limits," which allow for the adaptation of oversight activities to specific contexts without undermining the principle of popular sovereignty.
Goncharov et al. (Sun,) studied this question.