The role of the Judiciary Power in the accomplishment of public basic sanitation policies: possibilities and limits

ABSTRACT This article aims to analyse the judicial decisions handed down in the Second Instance by State Court of Justice of Rio de Janeiro (TJRJ) in the judgment of appeals related to the theme of basic sanitation, establishing as the initial term the advent of Law nº 11.445/2007. Sanitation has been predominantly addressed from more technical than political approaches. From this perspective, it is important to think about sanitation as a public policy that implies decisions, based on normative conceptions and parameters, defined in the context of diverse institutional configurations and with or less democratic characteristics. Considering those points, contrary and favourable arguments are discussed regarding the judicialization of politics and judicial activism, a fact that is a reality in the design of contemporary democracy, thus seeking to explain the relative obscurity of these relations in the process of definition of both health policies and sanitation policy in terms of public policies, as well as the impacts on the formulation of basic sanitation policy and the actions of the health field in relation to sanitation. Such phenomenon is a reality, emphasizing the need to investigate the role of the Judiciary branch in the very formulation and execution of sanitation policies in the city of Rio de Janeiro.