Sharing specifically about the need to improve institutions and legal policies on consumer rights protection, Deputy Minister of Justice Nguyen Thanh Tinh said that 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. It is noteworthy that a number of current legal regulations are not suitable to reality, requiring amendments and supplements in line with innovative thinking on law-making; a number of consumers and businesses have not yet proactively learned and voluntarily complied with the law on consumer rights protection. Not only that, the coordination between ministries, departments, 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... These limitations and problems have been posing many new and complicated challenges for the work of protecting consumer rights.
According to the Deputy Minister of Justice, through the reflection of the mass media, the situation of counterfeit, fake, poor quality goods... is very painful, complicated, especially in essential products such as medicine, milk, food, causing serious impacts on the health of consumers. This problem appears more and more sophisticated, infiltrating the market through many channels, posing a great challenge for management and supervision and requiring drastic and synchronous participation of the political system.
In legal relationships, consumers are always in a weaker position, even "alone" compared to businesses, even when they are fully aware. Businesses, for their own interests and profits, can disregard the law and "bully" consumers through the production and trading of counterfeit, fake, poor quality, expired goods, etc. Meanwhile, sanctions for violations affecting rights, health, life, etc. are not strong enough to deter, especially for essential goods and services and taking advantage of vulnerable consumers.
Deputy Minister Nguyen Thanh Tinh analyzed that the rapid development of science and technology, especially the digital economy and e-commerce, has created new space for development, but the downside is that it adds a channel to cheat consumers if they are not equipped with enough knowledge. When problems arise or want to reflect and make recommendations on the quality of goods traded via e-commerce, consumers still face many difficulties and challenges.
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 the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, the Ministry of Health, etc.
In particular, the implementation of the two-level local government model requires reviewing and clearly defining the authority and responsibility of the People's Committee at the commune level in organizing the implementation of regulations on consumer rights protection. At the same time, it stipulates the conditions to ensure effective implementation of state management on consumer rights protection at the grassroots level.
In order to communicate the improvement of legal policies on consumer protection, Deputy Minister Nguyen Thanh Tinh said that in the coming time, it is necessary to focus on interview articles, recording the opinions of representatives of relevant ministries, branches, localities, experts, scientists and consumers themselves... on the work of protecting consumer rights; clarify the current status of laws and law enforcement on consumer rights protection, thereby proposing solutions for improvement. In particular, closely follow the implementation of the responsibility of protecting consumer rights of competent 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, legitimate businesses and the economy, as well as the nation. At the same time, analyze and clarify the causes of this problem such as the limitations and inadequacies of legal regulations; ineffective state management, lack of responsibility in complying with the law of the subjects of production and trading of goods and services; problems of access to information and understanding of consumers, etc.
The articles can also reflect the current situation of inspection, examination, and handling of administrative violations in consumer rights protection to assess whether the impact of handling administrative violations in this work is appropriate and has enough deterrence. In addition, there is also a need for articles analyzing the responsibility of enterprises in protecting consumer rights; on the development of science, technology, innovation, digital transformation in the direction of creating conditions for enterprises to develop but must protect the interests of consumers...
"Many in-depth articles on consumer rights protection will bring about many positive effects in raising awareness among 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," Deputy Minister of Justice Nguyen Thanh Tinh affirmed.
Source: https://baotintuc.vn/thoi-su/thu-truong-bo-tu-phap-nguyen-thanh-tinh-hoan-thien-phap-luat-bao-ve-quyen-loi-nguoi-tieu-dung-20250918172114161.htm
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