Judicializing the right to the city in Brazil: strategy for legal mobilization and for citizen participation?

Abstract

This paper explores the judicialization of the right to the city (urban environment) as a strategy of legal mobilization of groups and sectors, to guarantee time, opportunity and social pressure for their political pretensions in the public space and state organs. The study starts from a theoretical approach, with the deductive method, combined with a qualitative case analysis. Therefore, the research is supported by a bibliographical and documentary survey. It analyzes an episode that took place in Recife (Brazil), around the social and legal movement to prevent or mitigate the consequences of real estate development in an area of environmental interest Cais Jose Estelita. Based on the methodological approach of Judicial Politics, the legal protection of the right to the city in Brazil is described (Normative Theory) and evaluated the motivations of legal decisions, taking into account the judicialization as exercise of a political activity (Positive Theory). The general hypothesis is that democratic participation has in judicialization the possibility of obstructing public policies, broadening political costs for state decisions and the potential for negotiation in administrative channels.