Expanding the Debate: Citizen Participation for the Implementation of the Right to Health in Brazil

摘要

Brazil has established a well-known constitutional right to health. Legal scholars have focused largelyon one aspect of this right: the role of the courts in enforcing health care access. Less attention has beenpaid to another aspect: citizens’ right to participate in health planning. Participation is a constituentcomponent of Brazil’s right to health that is intended to guarantee accountability and fair resourcedistribution for improved population health. In this paper, drawing on constitutional analysis andinterviews carried out for my doctoral research, I discuss Brazil’s national-level participatory body, theNational Health Council, and its potential for fostering accountability and balancing individual andsocietal interests in health policy. Effective participation, I contend, is a way to strengthen Brazil’s healthsystem to the benefit of the entire population, rather than only those who have access to the courts.This paper seeks to underline the constitutional requirement of participation as a core element of therealization of the right to health in Brazil and to invite other legal scholars to critically engage with theway in which Brazil’s right to health is implemented.