efforts to progressively fulfill the right(s) under review to all sectors of the population without discrimination and employing the maximum of its available resources.231 The "reasonableness" criterion thus assumes a considerable burden. This is hardly surprising. It is this criterion too which, borrowed from the jurisprudence of the South African Constitutional Court,232 appears in the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which uses this term in defining the approach the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights should take when examining individual communications.233 The distinct contribution of "reasonableness" is to call for a highly contextual assessment, in which the range of reasons which could be invoked on either side of the argument is not limited a priori as in rules-based argumentation. "Reasonableness", in other terms, does not work as a rule, if we understand a rule (as does Joseph Raz) as a second-order reason to exclude certain first-order reasons from a decision-making process.234 Instead, it is an invitation to a deliberative process, in which the question whether the State has done enough in mobilizing resources and in defining its budgetary priorities can only be answered taking into account not only the outcomes (the results achieved), but also the full range of constraints faced by the State, and -- as already mentioned235 -- the time the State had (or did not have) to amend policies that failed to produce the expected outcomes. Was the State caught by surprise, or unable to take action, due to a lack of resources? Or was it negligent or unwilling to amend policies that were failing? That question can only be answered by taking into account what the State knew or should have known, and which processes it put in place to remedy situations showing poor outcomes. In such an approach to the duty to dedicate the maximum available resources to the progressive realization of economic and social rights, the question of which procedures have been designed to make progress towards the full realization of economic, social and cultural rights that becomes decisive : how the decisions were reached in order to mobilize resources and in making spending decisions shall matter as much as what decisions were made. 4. From substance to procedure : democracy in budgetary decision-making There are three strong arguments for shifting the focus from the substance of policies for resource mobilization and spending to the procedure through which such policies are designed and implemented. First, strengthening participation, transparency and accountability in budgetary decision-making is a way to ensure that budgetary priorities shall take into account the interests of the most marginalized groups within society. The point barely requires elaboration. Economic 231 Id., at 29. Constitutional Court of South Africa, Case CCT 11/00, Government of the Republic of South Africa and Others v. Grootboom and Others, 2000 (11) B.C.L.R. 1169 (judgment of 4 October 2000) (leading judgment of Yacoob, J.). Taking as departure point s. 26 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to housing and provides in para. 2 that "The state must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of this right", the Constitutional Court notes in particular that "the obligation does not require the state to do more than its available resources permit. This means that both the content of the obligation in relation to the rate at which it is achieved as well as the reasonableness of the measures employed to achieve the result are governed by the availability of resources. Section 26 does not expect more of the state than is achievable within its available resources [...]. There is a balance between goal and means. The measures must be calculated to attain the goal expeditiously and effectively but the availability of resources is an important factor in determining what is reasonable" (para. 46). 233 See Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, adopted on 10 December 2008 during the sixty-third session of the General Assembly by resolution A/RES/63/117, in force since 5 May 2013, UNTS No. 14531, Art. 8(4) ("When examining communications under the present Protocol, the Committee shall consider the reasonableness of the steps taken by the State Party in accordance with part II [listing the substantive rights] of the Covenant. In doing so, the Committee shall bear in mind that the State Party may adopt a range of possible policy measures for the implementation of the rights set forth in the Covenant"). 234 See Joseph Raz, Practical Reason and Norms (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1975), 15-84; id., The Authority of Law (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1979), 3-33. Raz sees rules as second-order reasons of a particular type : as exclusionary reasons. That is, rules require that we exclude certain (first-order) reasons we may have to do a certain thing (or to refrain from doing a certain thing), so that we will be constrained not to act taking into account the full range of reasons that would otherwise be relevant in making the decision. This is what distinguishes rules-based decision-making from decision-making that seeks to be optimal "all things considered". 235 See above, text immediately following note 225. 232 50