Judicialization and social security: Restriction or enforcement of social rights

摘要

The article problematizes the social protection system and the judicialization in a context of weak enforcement of social policies. The study is supported by field research and documentary and bibliographical analysis and discusses the setbacks and violations regarding social rights, as well as the dismantling of the social protection system, which leads citizens to judicialize their demands in order to access rights. The article shows that current changes in the regulation and criteria have made access more restrictive and excessively rigorous, which indicates that citizens are, in practice, losing assured rights. Also, the process of judicialization to obtain denied rights is limiting, since institutions and services do not reach the entire population. It is a long term, time-consuming, wasteful, and bureaucratic process that barely meets the speed and resolution required by individuals in a context of social vulnerability.