Abstract: The article is dedicated to the analysis of constitutional principles of public control in all countries of Latin America. It examines the concept of "public control" in Latin American legal doctrine, its genesis, evolution, and place in the system of constitutional law. The distinction between public control and related categories is substantiated: civil participation; social accountability; public oversight. The following constitutional principles of public control are identified and classified: legality; transparency; participation (involvement of citizens and their associations in control procedures); plurality of subjects; accountability; feedback; independence of controlling bodies; timeliness; proportionality; guaranteed judicial protection of the results of public control. The reflection of these principles in the constitutions of all twenty Latin American states is analyzed. The consolidation of principles in the legislation of these countries is studied, including organic laws on public control, laws on transparency and access to information, as well as procedural codes. The methodological basis of the research consists of a set of general scientific and specialized legal methods: comparative legal; formal legal; institutional; systemic-structural; historical-legal. The issues related to the constitutional consolidation of public control principles are classified into three groups. The first group consists of conceptual-definitional problems: the absence of a legal definition of public control in most constitutions; the vagueness of the normative content of the principles; the mixing of the concepts "public control," "civil control," and "social control" in the texts of the constitutions. The second group includes structural-institutional problems: duplication of competencies among various control bodies; conflicts between constitutional norms on control and norms of sectoral legislation; the absence of a hierarchy of acts of public control bodies. The third group encompasses procedural problems: the lack of mechanisms for judicial enforcement of control results; the declarative nature of many constitutional provisions; the lack of assurance of the right to control corresponding with the obligation of authorities to provide information. As problems of implementing constitutional principles of public control, the following are highlighted: gaps in procedural legislation expressed in the absence of procedures for reviewing acts of public control; the absence of delictual compositions for obstructing the exercise of public control in administrative and criminal legislation; legal uncertainty regarding the status of public control bodies, their place in the system of separation of powers; the dependency of control bodies on the executive branch through mechanisms of budgetary financing and appointment of leaders; the conflictual nature of norms on access to information, allowing officials to block control under the pretext of state secrecy.

Keywords: constitutional principles, Latin America, public control, civil control, state control, subjects, social control, popular control, legality, accountability

Abstract: The article examines the legal means by which a public authority shapes a prospective expert opinion before the examination begins: the questions put to the expert, the materials provided, the time limit, the expert's rights and obligations, and requirements for the form of the findings. It analyses six expert examination regimes - two jurisdictional (commercial (arbitrazh) court proceedings and administrative offence proceedings) and four non-jurisdictional administrative regimes (state control (supervision), state environmental review, review of contract performance results, and review of scientific and technical programmes) - together with higher-court guidance and the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation's summaries of judicial practice. The terms of reference are treated as the earliest tool for managing the quality of an expert opinion. The aims are to identify the elements prescribed by legislation, compare the regimes against them, determine typical defects, and propose a model structure. Formal legal and comparative legal methods are employed. The two jurisdictional regimes serve as a benchmark. Ten elements of the terms of reference were derived inductively from the rules of the six regimes, and each regime was scored for the presence of each element. In the non-jurisdictional regimes, only one to six of these elements are prescribed at the federal level; most requirements are left to agency regulations, contracts, and commissioning authorities. The express prohibition on putting questions of law to the expert is not reproduced in these regimes, and the state control legislation's wording on compliance with "the principles and norms of law" is open to broad interpretation. Seven typical defects are identified, three of which no statutory element prevents. The article distinguishes questions of fact, technical compliance, and legal qualification and proposes a ten-section model structure with a checklist that commissioning authorities can apply without legislative amendment.

Keywords: expert assignment, questions to the expert, expert opinion, special knowledge, legal questions, input data, decision rule, contract acceptance, state control, public administration