The consumer’s right is linked to the Consumer Protection Code (CDC), which regulates the buying and selling relationships in any business. The objectives are: to ensure that consumers get access to source information and quality products and services to protect against fraud in the consumer market, ensure transparency and security for users of goods and services and harmonize consumer relations through the intervention legal.
Prior to the CDC, the problems of consumers of goods and services were solved by the Civil Code, which showed inefficient given the complexities of consumers and suppliers.
The importance of the creation of the consumer protection code has been giving greater attention to consumers in relation to economic phenomena and changes increasingly sophisticated emerging from modern consumer society.
History
The right of the consumer, although it gained attention in the modern era, it was already applied previously. You can observe laws related to the consumer in the Code of Hammurabi, for example, when an architect building a house with walls inefficient he was forced to rebuild. If the house should fall and a family member were killed, the architect could be taken to the gallows.
Over the years, trade relations have been intensifying, especially after the emergence of the bourgeoisie and the socio-economic model based on exchanges.
But only with the industrial revolution and mass production that trade relations started to become complex because the idea of consumerism began to become dominant in the social sphere.
The twentieth century represented a major breakthrough advertising, which caused consumption and large-scale production, being necessary to regulate and give greater attention to these legal relationships.
In Brazil
The consumer code in Brazil was created in 1990 and entered into force in 1991, being a milestone for civil rights and trade relations of the country. Prior to the CDC, the problems of consumers of goods and services were handled by the civil code.
The civil code was ineffective on the complexities of consumer relations. In almost 30 years of CDC, many advances have been achieved, though many citizens still have difficulty understanding the principles of the code.
In 2010, the law was passed obliging establishments to leave the CDC exposed to the eyes of customers for consultation.
Basic consumer rights
- Right to protection of life, health and safety . .
Before you buy a product or use a service, consumers should be alerted by the supplier of all possible risks that can offer to their health or safety. - Right to education on consumption, freedom of choice and equality in hiring . .
The consumer has the right to be instructed on the use of goods and services, the right to choose the product or service you see fit. - Right to information
The supplier is obliged to clarify all that is necessary about the product and the service, even if it has not yet been acquired by the consumer. - Right to protection against misleading or abusive advertising
Misleading advertising occurs when information about the product / service offered by the provider does not correspond to reality, while the abusive advertising is identified by the aggressiveness, may cause the consumer any harmful behavior or threatening to your health . - Right to contractual protection
CDC protects the consumer when the clauses of the document are not met, or even when they are harmful to the consumer, and may be canceled or modified by court order. - Right to prevent and repair damage
Compensation for damages must be based both on the injury suffered by the consumer – material or moral – as well as having punitive and pedagogical character for the supplier to avoid relapses. - Right of access to justice
When you have their rights violated, consumers can go to court to prevent or suppress any dissatisfaction with the product or service, either by false expectations, to the existence of vice or defect. - Right to reverse the burden of proof
can be determined that the supplier produces the evidence, establishing equality and balance of the procedural relationship between consumer and supplier. - Right to adequate and effective delivery of public services
standards that ensure the quality of public service delivery, as well as good customer service in public services – both the services of the public administration, and by its dealers.