related expenditures in the Mexican national budget as a case study.251 They noted the dangers of dissociating political empowerment from the task of budget analysis, if accountability is to improve: Despite the importance of funding for recognizing the economic rights of marginalized people, programs that benefit the poor are often among the first to face cuts in times of budget deficits. There are many reasons for this. Other items such as interest on the debt, the public-sector wage bill, and military expenditures are more likely to have first claim on scarce funds. Other groups such as business leaders or urban elites often have more effective and experienced lobbyists. Too often vulnerable people are comparatively “invisible” to government elites who may socialize with and circulate among the well-to-do. And even when funds have been allocated to anti-poverty programs or other services benefiting vulnerable communities, weak expenditure and program management and the lack of political power among the poor can mean that the money never reaches the intended beneficiaries.252 Indeed, budget analysis and political empowerment are mutually supportive. Whereas budget analysis will barely improve accountability if it is performed in a technocratic fashion, with no or only limited participation of the public, it can be deeply empowering in its own right, as it will promote transparency in the use of public revenue. By comparing sources of government revenue with expenditures, instances of "leakage" can be identified, and corruption, nepotism or clientelism by government officials can be highlighted by examining who benefits from public programs. Such a scrutiny may take many forms, including social audits at community level, that can be empowering even to the poor and illiterate.253 By thus enhancing accountability, budget analysis is a major asset in ensuring that public policies are more pro-poor, and that they will therefore benefit the realization of economic and social rights. In and of itself, budget analysis is nothing more than a tool, and it could be limited to an expert-led exercise. But once the tool is used by the people themselves or by their representatives, it can represent a serious check against abuse of power and a wrong ranking of priorities. Under such an approach, substantive rules and procedural requirements are deeply intertwined. The insistence on the strengthening of participatory processes in budgetary choices should not be mistaken with a plea for a "representation-reinforcing" theory of rights adjudication, according to which, in the words of its most explicit proponent, judicial review "can appropriately concern itself only with questions of participation, and not with the substantive merits of the political choice under attack".254 Instead, the insistence on compliance with procedural norms is a way to ensure that the substantive norms will be effectively taken into account and complied with. Strengthening participation is not only an end in itself. It also has an instrumental value, ensuring that broad prescriptions concerning the consistency of budgetary choices with human rights shall be effectively implemented, by reforming how such choices are made. Indeed, greater participation, accountability and transparency in budgetary processes on the one hand, and compliance with the "constitutional background norms" described in Part II of this chapter, are mutually supportive : just like improved decision-making can ensure the background norms are 251 Fundar (Centro de Análisis e Investigación), International Budget Project and International Human Rights Internship Program, Dignity Counts. A guide to use budget analysis to advance human rights (Washington, D.C., 2004). 252 Id., at 29. 253 The various forms of social audits include: the practice of government officials reporting publicly on the use of funds allocated to certain programmes, and on the allocations received by each of the beneficiaries (such as individuals provided employment in cash-for-food schemes or schools supported in school feeding schemes), to village assemblies ; the publication of revenues and disbursements on the internet, allowing non-governmental organisations to track instances of misuse or diversion of funds ; citizens' report cards as in India or the Philippines ; community score cards as in Kenya and the Gambia ; or budgetary audits conducted by Javanese farmers in Indonesia. See, e.g., Leonid Peisakhin and Paul Pinto, "Is transparency an effective anti-corruption strategy? Evidence from a field experiment in India", Regulation & Governance, vol. 4(3) (2010): 261–280; UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization), Social Audits for Strengthening Accountability: Building blocks for human rights-based programming – Practice note (Bangkok: UNESCO, 2007). For a more skeptical approach, Frances Cleaver, "Paradoxes of participation: Questioning Participatory Approaches to Development", Journal of International Development, vol. 11 (1999): 597-612. 254 John Hart Ely, Democracy and Distrust. A Theory of Judicial Review (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1980), at 181. 54