JUDICIALIZAÇÃO DA SAÚDE E TECNOLOGIAS EM DIABETES: MECANISMO DE EQUIDADE OU REPRODUÇÃO DE DESIGUALDADES?

This article examines health judicialization in Brazil through the lens of access to therapeutic technologies for type 1 diabetes, such as continuous glucose monitoring systems and insulin pumps, questioning its role within the constitutional right to health. It advances the hypothesis that, although judicial intervention operates as a mechanism for enforcing the minimum core of social rights and for addressing governmental omissions, its practical implementation may reveal structural asymmetries incompatible with the constitutional ideal of substantive equality. The study develops a doctrinal analysis of the right to health as a social right of immediate applicability, articulating the principles of universality, comprehensiveness, and material equality with the contemporary debate on budgetary constraints and joint liability among federative entities. It further explores, from an empirical perspective, the socioeconomic and informational profile of individuals who resort to litigation to obtain such technologies, seeking to identify structural determinants of access to the justice system. The article argues that the universal character of the right does not automatically extend to the mechanisms through which it is claimed, as judicialization may function as a selective filter dependent on legal and informational capital. It concludes that judicialization constitutes a relevant instrument for rights enforcement, yet remains insufficient to ensure distributive equity, thus requiring coordinated institutional responses between the judiciary and public health policy.