Health litigation equity and justice in health?

Several studies in fields comprising the social sciences, politics and law stress the importance of the Judiciary in contemporary Democracies. They focus on litigation brought on by citizens to minimize right violations committed by the State. These studies also discuss the distortions in public management caused by the rapid rise in demand for goods and services. Health litigation is a term used in the academic world that has also been commonly adopted elsewhere. It describes a phenomenon related to the growing trend of legal suits destined to guarantee social rights, such as the right to health which had not yet been addressed by the courts. This work aimed to present the way in which the judicial system organizes itself and its relationship with the public health system, in order to respond to growing health litigation for access to medicines. The greater number of lawsuits and the distortion they cause to pharmaceutical services management may be related to difficulties health managers have in understanding both the dynamics of the judicial system and citizens´ rights to demand access to medicines as a legitimate institutional means for defending and guaranteeing those rights. Otherwise they may be related to difficulties legal personnel have in understanding the inner workings of the health system and the medical and scientific logic that permeates regulations on access when examining demands. The development of management tools that unite both the judicial and the health-system perspective is viewed as a feasible step to reduce and prevent these lawsuits and to establish a model for evaluation and monitoring of the phenomenon, maintaining viable and sustainable pharmaceutical services management in the public health system and contributing to better quality of health care.