The normative power of Bipartite Inter-Commissions and the effectiveness of their rules

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to discuss the normative power of the Inter-managers Bipartite Commission (CIB – in Portuguese) and the effectiveness of its norms, in the context of the Brazilian Health Law. Methodologically, it was adopted a bibliographic and legislative analysis, articulated with Habermas’ discursive theory of law and democracy. The CIB was instituted by the Basic Operational Norm 01/1993 and responds for the operational aspects of the Brazilian National Public Health System (SUS – in Portuguese). It is a forum for negotiation and operationalization between municipal and state managers, promoting the integration of the various municipal health systems coordinated by the state government. The norms issued by the CIB in the form of resolutions, have the nature of procedural rights, in other words, they establish specific procedures for fulfilling the right to health, allowing all potential receivers of these norms to acknowledge, to support, to criticize or even to challenge them in court. The normative power of the CIB results from express legal prevision to regulate the operational aspects of the SUS, and its democratic legitimacy is the result of the control directly exercised by citizens or through the State Council of Health. Characterized as a forum for the negotiation and operationalization of health policies, with the potential for opening and deepening channels of participation and social control, it is a space for democratic genesis of rights and its rules, therefore, must be respected, once they integrate the Legal System, and articulate the norms of the SUS.