Realizing the Fundamental Right to Health through Litigation: The Colombian Case

Colombia has made significant progress in the recognition and protection of the right to health. Using litigation—a structural element of the democratic Colombian design—many people have had to fight in order to enjoy effective access to health care. Such litigation has proven a pacific and democratic way to protect a constitutional principle: health as a fundamental and justiciable right. In 2008, in the wake of thousands of individual rulings on the right to health, Colombia’s Constitutional Court issued a structural decision, T-760 of 2008, ordering government entities to identify flaws that made the country’s health system outdated and inequitable and to take correctional measures. In the years following this decision, Congress and the executive branch have increasingly included a rights-oriented perspective in public policies. The Colombian case reveals judicial intervention as a legitimate way to extend pressure on the government to act according to constitutional boundaries. Although there is still a long road ahead, public institutions responsible for health care are now on a constitutionally acceptable track.