Judicial Policy Analysis in Colombia: A Microeconomic Study of Health and Drug Governance

Abstract

The judicialization of public policy in Colombia places the Constitutional Court at the intersection of rights adjudication, administrative coordination, and resource allocation. This article examines how the Corte Constitucional de Colombia (CCC) performs policy-analytical functions in health and drug governance through a microeconomic lens. A qualitative documentary design was used to synthesize selected constitutional decisions and forty-five peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2017 and 2025. The material was coded thematically around access costs, information asymmetry, policy integration, distributive effects, monitoring, and precaution under uncertainty. The findings show that judicial intervention is best understood not as a substitute for executive policy making, but as a conditional governance mechanism activated when ordinary institutional channels fail to resolve rights-related access problems or coordination deficits. In health governance, tutela litigation and structural review reduce procedural barriers for claimants while simultaneously creating fiscal, equity, and implementation tensions. In drug governance, precautionary review of glyphosate spraying shifts the policy problem from operational effectiveness alone toward evidence quality, risk, consultation, and institutional accountability. Across both domains, the CCC relies on an analytical sequence of problem definition, evidentiary correction, dialogic solution design, and follow-up. The article concludes that the policy value of judicialization depends on how effectively judicial orders are translated into integrated administrative action, transparent evidence use, and sustained monitoring rather than on the issuance of rulings alone.