Consumer Law is a branch of civil law and business law that deals with the legal relationships between suppliers and consumers.
The consumer's right is based on a set of norms that defend and protect the individual or legal entity that acquires consumer goods, whether services or products.
All rights of the Brazilian consumer are established in the “Consumer Law”, also known as the Defense Code of the Consumer, which aims to ensure that it can protect itself against abuse by sellers and suppliers of products and services.
Learn more about the meaning of Consumer.
The definition of consumer rights, as it is currently known, only took shape from the mid-twentieth century, especially after World War II.
With the growth of cities and the population's greater purchasing power, the need to create mechanisms that harmonized relations between suppliers and consumers became evident.
See also the meaning of Procon.
Consumer Protection Code
In Brazil, the Consumer Defense Code (CDC) is established from the Law No. 8078 of September 11, 1990.
The main purpose of the CDC is to guarantee an organization and respect in the relationship between service providers, product suppliers and final consumers.
Basic Consumer Rights
According to article 6 of the Consumer Defense Code, some basic principles are established that guarantee consumer protection, such as:
- the protection of life, health and safety against the risks caused by practices in the supply of products and services considered dangerous or harmful;
- education and dissemination about the proper consumption of products and services, ensuring freedom of choice and equality in hiring;
- adequate and clear information about the different products and services, with correct specification of quantity, characteristics, composition, quality, levied taxes and price, as well as the risks that present;
- protection against misleading and abusive advertising, coercive or unfair commercial methods, as well as against abusive or imposed practices and clauses in the provision of products and services;
- the modification of contractual clauses that establish disproportionate benefits or their revision due to supervening facts that make them excessively onerous;
- the effective prevention and reparation of property and moral, individual, collective and diffuse damages;
- access to judicial and administrative bodies with a view to preventing or repairing property damage and moral, individual, collective or diffuse, ensuring legal, administrative and technical protection to the needy;
- facilitating the defense of their rights, including reversing the burden of proof, in their favor, in civil proceedings, when, at the discretion of the judge, the allegation is credible or when it is insufficient, according to the ordinary rules of experiences;
- the adequate and efficient delivery of public services in general.
See also: the meaning of Jurisprudence and Rebus sic stantibus.