Multi-level constitutional protection of health rights: analyzing the effectiveness and interaction of popular and group actions in Colombia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21056/aec.v25i101.2059Keywords:
health rights; popular actions; group actions; environmental health; collective litigationAbstract
This article discusses Colombia's multi-level constitutional health rights protection and how popular and group actions complement tutela actions, structural litigation, and constitutional review to address systemic health issues. The study found that tutela actions for immediate rights protection, structural litigation for systemic remedies, collective actions for shared health interests, and constitutional review for health-related law shaping strengthen health rights protection in Colombia. In environmental health cases from 2003-2024, administrative tribunals expanded health rights protection beyond medical care to include environmental and infrastructure determinants, reflecting a broader understanding of health rights in Colombia. The "Coordinated Multilevel Protection Model" (CMPM) explains how micro (individual tutelas), meso (collective actions), macro (structural litigation), and constitutional review levels interact to allow strategic migration when one level is insufficient. The CMPM conceptualizes how legal mechanisms complement and overlap to create a flexible system that allows coordinated and strategic health rights responses, improving Colombia's multi-level protection approach. Colombia's multi-level approach has improved health rights protection, but delays in structural orders and the high volume of tutelas strain the judicial system and limit systemic impact. Optimizing protection level interactions, better integrating judicial decisions with public health policies, and using new technologies to protect health rights are recommended by the study.
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