Claiming the Right to Health in Brazilian Courts: The Exclusion of the Already Excluded?

The aim of this article is to test a widespread belief among Brazilian legal scholars in the area of social rights, namely, the cfoim that courts are an alternative institutional voice for the poor, who are usually marginalized from the political process. According to this belief, social rights liti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Law & social inquiry 2011-09, Vol.36 (4), p.825-853
Main Authors: da Silva, Virgílio Afonso, Terrazas, Fernanda Vargas
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Household income
Human rights
Judicial rulings
Lawsuits
Litigation
Medications
Minimum wage
Oncology
Plaintiffs
Politics
Right to health
Social services
Socioeconomic factors
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Summary:The aim of this article is to test a widespread belief among Brazilian legal scholars in the area of social rights, namely, the cfoim that courts are an alternative institutional voice for the poor, who are usually marginalized from the political process. According to this belief, social rights litigation would be a means (supposedly "a better means") of realizing rights such as the right to health care, since supposedly both the wealthy and the poor have equal access to the courts. To probe the consistency of this belief, we analyzed the socioeconomic profiles of pfointiffs in the city of Sao Paulo (Brazil) who were granted access to specific medications or medical treatments try judicial decisions. In this study, the justiciability of social rights has not proven to be a means of rendering certain public services more democratic and accessible.
ISSN:0897-6546
1747-4469
1545-696X
DOI:10.1111/j.1747-4469.2011.01252.x