Judicialization of health policy in the definition of access to public goods: individual rights versus collective rights

TLDR: In this article, the authors analyze a form of judicialization of public policies in the health field, arguing that the individualized quest for the guarantee of the right to healthcare via the judicial path is a reproduction of the tensions produced in democratic societies between the social and the individual conceptions of citizenship.

Abstract: The article analyses a form of judicialization of public policies in the health field. It has as its object lawsuits initiated against Belo Horizonte Municipality arguing for the provision of services or the acquisition of inputs not obtained in the public system via institutional access routes. The argument is that the individualized quest for the guarantee of the right to healthcare via the judicial path is a form of reproduction of the tensions produced in democratic societies between the social and the individual conceptions of citizenship. By ensuring access to goods by means of individual suits, the Judiciary interferes in the making of public choices taken on by public-sector managers, thus regulating opportunities for consumption according to a concentrating logic. And so the assertion of a constitutional right superposes the political right of the majority, represented by the Executive, to make choices as to the goods that are the object of public policies, with a relatively significant financial and budgetary impact.