Resumo O objetivo deste artigo é discutir o fenômeno da judicialização e a subpolítica médica na contemporaneidade. A judicialização é identificada como o envolvimento do Poder Judiciário na esfera política na tutela de interesses individuais, como uma interferência no planejamento das políticas públicas. As decisões judiciais acabariam definindo políticas, à margem do modelo democrático da modernidade industrial. Diversas pesquisas defendem que o Judiciário tende a atender estas demandas, evocadas sob o fundamento da garantia da saúde e vida, abalizadas pelas normas de direito constitucional à saúde e profissionais médicos. Mas a judicialização pode ser também caracterizada como eco de um processo reflexivo da modernidade, no qual direitos fundamentais estabelecidos potencializam uma nova cultura política. Os cidadãos utilizam meios não tradicionais de intervenção e controle público e judicial, buscando defender seus interesses e direitos. O próprio fundamento fático das demandas é construído reflexivamente pelo saber médico, impermeável a formas tradicionais de controle externo. Isto gera uma judicialização pautada pela medicina e favorece a expansão do campo de atuação médica, e do mercado e pesquisa para a indústria médico-hospitalar e farmacêutica. Tanto sociedade como Estado acabam sendo obrigados a recorrer a normas e conhecimentos medicinalmente constituídos e monopolizados, em uma estratégia reflexiva de mercado.

Abstract The phenomenon of judicialization and the growing litigation in health demands have gained increasing importance - not only academic but also practical. In Brazil, this is usually seen by the academic criticism as the involvement of the Judiciary in the political sphere and its activity, as an interference in the planning of public policies. The judicial decisions would end up by defining policies, thus diverging from the democratic model of industrial modernity based upon the separation of Powers. Various research projects have argued that the Judiciary tends to attend to these demands, which invoke as their legal foundation the right to health, as defined by the constitutional norms, and based upon medical reports. This article discusses judicialization and medical sub-politics in the contemporary scene. In the light of contemporary social changes, judicialization can also be characterized as an echo of a reflexive process of modernity, in which established fundamental rights point to a new political culture. Citizens use non-traditional means of intervention and public and judicial control to defend their interests and rights. The very factual foundation of the demands is constructed reflectively by medical knowledge, impermeable to the traditional forms of external control. This generates a judicialization controlled by medicine and favors the expansion of the field of, activity, market and research for the medical, hospital and pharmaceutical industries. Thus, judicialization can attend to the more characteristically techno-scientific and economic interests than to democratic ones. Both society and the State end up by being obliged to have recourse to norms and knowledge medically constituted and monopolized, in a reflective market strategy. It is important to rethink judicialization in the light of the intensely political activity of medicine, thus opening up new prospects for the debate and critical understanding of this activity, its consequences, purposes and reflectively constructed risks.