THIS THEMATIC ISSUE REPRESENTS THE PRODUCTION of the first Professional Master’s Degree in Justice and Health for the Rio de Janeiro State Judiciary School (Emerj), a product of the Agreement 001/2016 signed between the Sergio Arouca National School of Public Health (Ensp) from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), and the Emerj.

The success of such investment is evident from the quality of the research carried out by the judges, which reflects not only the excellence of the knowledge ministered, but also and above all the evident process of humanization and development of competences linked to the sensitivity, reflection, and criticism that those students, who exercise the judiciary profession, have gone through.

Such level of maturation and self-reflection, allied with knowledge, have formed better people, which fortunately results in the greater qualification and responsibility of those who will judge their fellow men. The judiciary exercise naturally gains much from this dialogue, but the conquest is no one’s but society’s, which now sees an approximation of its real problems with a new justice, a new judiciary branch in continuous preparation to face the challenges of contemporaneity after so many biotechnoscientific achievements. The judiciary power that insists on placing the human in first place, and not the process, conversing with the world and other institutions.

On the other hand, Ensp’s Department of Human Rights, Health and Cultural Diversity (DIHS) had been building a formal education path through a very consistent professional master’s degree in the field of human rights and health, focusing on issues such as justice, citizenship, judicialization, gender violence, prison system and health, race, and ethnicity, among other topics. With a view to deepening the issue of human rights and health, it was necessary to get closer to the judiciary branch, which has been materialized through several events held between the DIHS and the Emerj, since 2003.

The combination of mutual interests that culminated in the completion of the Professional Masters Course enabled the deepening of very important issues in the field of health as well as the possibilities of providing judicial protection, which stands out for its commitment to the pursuit of justice.

It is important to highlight that the choice for the publication in the journal ‘Saúde em Debate’, through the Brazilian Center for Health Studies (Cebes), a national entity created in 1976, ‘whose historical mission is the struggle for democratization and the defense of social rights, especially the universal right to health’, is due to the importance and academic respectability of the journal.

Last but not least, the right to health is inserted in the relations of the subject of rights with the world in which he lives, with his level of development, with the increased recognition of human equality, with the participation of vulnerable populations, such as transsexuals, with anti-racism, including in relation to orphaned children, with the due information of subjects of rights and of professionals working in support of justice and health, with feminist advances, in recognizing the condition of women and their emancipation, with the application of international conventions for people of any age with physical or cognitive disabilities, with basic sanitation and nutrition, with issues regarding health in prisons, among others. Health as a human right, but above all as an instrument of social emancipation. “We have the right to be equal when difference makes us inferior, we have the right to be different when equality mischaracterize us”¹1 Santos BS. O pensador [internet]. [acesso em 2019 dez 12]. Disponível em: https://www.pensador.com/frase/MTEzNTExNw/.
https://www.pensador.com/frase/MTEzNTExN... .

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