THE EVOLUTION OF HEALTH JUDICIALIZATION IN BRAZIL: FROM ATOMIZED LITIGATION TO BINDING PRECEDENTS

Abstract

This article analyzes the evolution of the judicialization of the fundamental right to health in Brazil, highlighting the paradigm shift from an atomized litigation model to a rationalization structured by binding precedents. Initially, the study examines the institutional expansion of the Judiciary and its intervention in public policies as a response to state inertia. Subsequently, it investigates judicial activism regarding healthcare, analyzing the case law of the Superior Courts, with an emphasis on the integration between STJ Theme 106 and STF Themes 6, 793, and 1.234. It demonstrates that this new legal framework, by redefining competencies and centralizing the funding of medications not included in official lists, imposes evidence-based medicine criteria and administrative deference, consolidating budgetary pragmatism in health management. The article concludes that this arrangement aims to ensure the sustainability of the Unified Health System (SUS) and the Brazilian federal order, promoting a hermeneutic reconfiguration of the “existential minimum” within the boundaries of the “reserve of the possible”.