Consumer Protection Law needs to closely follow reality

On the afternoon of October 3, the National Assembly Delegation of Nghe An province held a conference to collect comments on the Draft Law on Consumer Rights Protection (amended). Comrade Thai Thi An Chung - Deputy Head of the Provincial National Assembly Delegation chaired the conference. Photo: My Nga

The Law on Consumer Protection (amended) consists of 7 chapters and 80 articles, passed by the National Assembly in 2010. However, after nearly 12 years of implementation, the provisions of the Law have had limitations and shortcomings, and need to be amended and supplemented to suit the changing socio-economic context and international integration trends.

At the conference, delegates highly agreed on comprehensively changing the Law on Consumer Protection to ensure legitimate rights for consumers, build a culture of healthy competition among businesses and actively contribute opinions to the draft Law.

Representatives of the Market Management Department participated in giving comments on the Draft Law on Consumer Rights Protection (amended). Photo: My Nga

The representative of the Market Management Department pointed out that in reality, there are some cases where consumers abuse their rights, leading to impacts on the interests of individuals and business organizations, such as providing false information about the quality of products and goods. Therefore, in order to limit and bind the responsibility of consumers when rights abuse occurs in consumer relations, it is proposed to add the obligation of consumers to be responsible before the law for the information they provide and to compensate individuals and business organizations if there is damage caused by providing false information.

The Draft Law still has some provisions that do not ensure transparency and do not have clear criteria for managers to determine suitability for groups of people, ages, and living areas, thereby promoting responsibility to ensure safety for consumers.

Regarding the responsibility to recall defective products, the opinions of the delegates are that there should be no distinction between type A defective products (directly affecting human health) and type B (not affecting health). When a defective product is detected, the same treatment as "type A defective product" must be applied, which means stopping production and supplying to the market. This will help consumers avoid buying defective or counterfeit products on the market and avoid the situation where some manufacturers deliberately release them to the market.

An interdisciplinary delegation from Nghe An province inspected food safety at a supermarket. Photo: Thanh Chung

In addition, at the conference, the opinions of the delegates also focused on a number of issues such as: expanding the scope of subjects, not only "individuals", but also "organizations"; clearly defining the criteria, methods, and certificates of operation of social organizations participating in protecting consumer rights; ensuring clarity, accuracy, ease of understanding, ease of remembering, and ease of application of regulations on the interpretation of words and concepts.

Concluding the conference, Comrade Thai Thi An Chung - Deputy Head of the Provincial National Assembly Delegation assessed that the opinions were highly practical. The delegation will receive and forward these opinions to the drafting agency to review and complete the Draft Law on Consumer Rights Protection (amended) before submitting it to the National Assembly.