It is necessary to perfect institutions and legal policies to protect consumer rights.

(Chinhphu.vn) - After 5 years of implementing Directive No. 30-CT/TW, in addition to remarkable results, the implementation of the Directive has revealed a number of limitations and difficulties, thereby raising the urgent issue of perfecting legal policies on protecting consumer rights.

Deputy Minister of Justice Nguyen Thanh Tinh. Photo: BTP

The current context raises the urgent issue of perfecting legal policies on consumer rights protection to implement the Party's policies, including Resolution No. 66-NQ/TW on innovation in law-making and enforcement to meet the requirements of national development in the new era; Resolution No. 68-NQ/TW on private economic development and recently Resolution No. 72-NQ/TW on a number of breakthrough solutions to strengthen the protection, care and improvement of people's health.

At the same time, protect constitutional rights such as property rights, inviolability of life and health, contribute to raising legal awareness and the spirit of respect for the law, and build a socialist rule-of-law state of Vietnam.

To clarify the need to improve institutions and legal policies on consumer rights protection, Deputy Minister of Justice Nguyen Thanh Tinh had a talk with reporters.

Could you please share specifically about the shortcomings and limitations that require timely improvement of legal policies on consumer rights protection?

Deputy Minister of Justice Nguyen Thanh Tinh : In addition to the achieved results, the implementation of Directive No. 30-CT/TW of the Party Central Committee Secretariat on strengthening the Party's leadership and the State's management responsibility for consumer rights protection still reveals certain shortcomings and limitations, requiring timely improvement of legal policies on consumer rights protection.

In reality, as reflected by the mass media, the situation of counterfeit, fake, and poor quality goods is very painful and complicated, especially in essential products such as medicine, milk, and food, seriously affecting the health of consumers. This problem appears more and more sophisticatedly, infiltrating the market through many channels, posing a great challenge to management and supervision and requiring drastic and synchronous participation of the political system.

In legal relationships, consumers are always at a disadvantage, even "alone" compared to businesses, even when they are fully aware. Businesses, for their own benefit and profit, can disregard the law and "bully" consumers through the production and trading of counterfeit, fake, poor quality, and expired goods...

Along with the benefits from the rapid development of science and technology, especially the digital economy and e-commerce, which has brought new space for development, its downside is an additional channel for consumer fraud. Currently, many consumers are not equipped with enough knowledge, so when problems arise or want to reflect and make recommendations on the quality of goods traded via e-commerce, they face many difficulties and challenges.

So according to the Deputy Minister, what is the cause of this situation?

Deputy Minister of Justice Nguyen Thanh Tinh: Regarding the causes of these limitations and shortcomings, it can be seen that some current legal regulations are not suitable for practice, requiring amendments and supplements in accordance with innovative thinking in law-making.

Sanctions for violations affecting rights, health, life, etc. are not strong enough to deter, especially for essential goods and services and those that take advantage of vulnerable consumers. A number of consumers and businesses have not yet proactively learned about and voluntarily complied with the law on consumer rights protection.

It is worth mentioning that the coordination between departments, ministries, branches, localities and socio-political organizations in protecting consumer rights is sometimes still lacking in synchronization and not really tight, leading to the effectiveness not reaching the optimal level...

Through preliminary monitoring by the Ministry of Justice, the responsibilities of ministries and branches in this work are still unclear. Currently, the Ministry of Industry and Trade is responsible for the overall protection of consumer rights, but in addition, there are responsibilities of other specialized ministries such as: Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, Ministry of Health, etc.

The implementation of the two-level local government model, the authority and responsibility of the People's Committee at the commune level in organizing the implementation of regulations on consumer rights protection have not been reviewed and clarified.

In what direction should communication on perfecting legal policies on consumer protection focus, Deputy Minister?

Deputy Minister of Justice Nguyen Thanh Tinh: Communication on perfecting legal policies on consumer protection needs to focus on interview articles, recording opinions of representatives of relevant ministries, branches, localities, experts, scientists and consumers themselves... on consumer rights protection; clarifying the current status of laws and law enforcement on consumer rights protection..., thereby proposing solutions for improvement.

In particular, it is necessary to closely follow the implementation of the responsibility of protecting consumer rights of the authorities, fully reflect the developments in consumers' lives to propose timely policy responses.

For example, it is possible to organize a series of articles reflecting on the production and trading of counterfeit and poor quality goods in a number of "hot" fields today, from food, pharmaceuticals, veterinary drugs, pesticides to products directly related to the health of children and the elderly, which have caused direct and indirect harm to consumers, to legitimate businesses and the economy, as well as to the national race?

At the same time, analyze and clarify the causes of this problem, such as limitations and inadequacies of legal regulations; ineffective state management; lack of responsibility in complying with the law by producers and traders of goods and services; problems of access to information and understanding of consumers, etc.

I hope that many in-depth articles on the topic of consumer rights protection will bring about many positive effects in raising awareness of consumers, producers and traders of goods and services, and the implementation of responsibilities of State agencies in perfecting and organizing the implementation of laws on consumer rights protection as required by the Secretariat in Directive No. 30-CT/TW.

Thank you very much, Deputy Minister!

Dieu Anh

Source: https://baochinhphu.vn/can-thiet-hoan-thien-the-che-chinh-sach-phap-luat-bao-ve-quyen-loi-nguoi-tieu-dung-10225091814421468.htm