Consumer Rights Need Further Reinforcing

According to the latest survey by Vinastas, nearly 50 percent of Vietnamese consumers do not know about eight of basic rights as stipulated in the Charter of the United Nations and ordinance on protecting consumer issued in 1999 by the Vietnam’s National Assembly.

They are empty not only knowledge on laws by also on information about organizations who are able to support or help them when unexpected problems about the quality of goods. Founded and have operated over the past 20 years, however, a few people know about Vinastas, Ho Tat Thang said.

 

In fact, there happened consecutive whimsical cases such as bottled water tainted with the bacterium Pseudomonas Aeruginosa, or that many consumers have not enough money for buying social insurance. People in residential areas must face an oil lamp plight, a long-time water shortage, or a plight of watching low-quality television programmes despite of their payment for the cable TV. Honda Vietnam refused to have a dialogue with million of consumers and insisted on selling vehicles; however, consumers still endure because they do not know what they can depend on for help.

 

We are pursuing “wise consumers” who are equipped with all knowledge about laws and market information to protect their own rights. This is estimated to take much time to do.

There is another reason put Vietnamese consumers at a disadvantage. Thang mentions an example: a consumer confided to Vietnamnet on a recent online forum that he on February 24, 2008 bought a Pacific Airline ticket for the flight No. BL 581 linking Hue and Ho Chi Minh City. The flight was canceled; the airport announced passengers can retake their fare. He then flew to Ho Chi Minh City via a flight of the Vietnam Airlines. He had taken much time to contact with the Pacific Airline for taking his fare but there only an irresponsible promise. After all, he did not do any thing.

 

Moreover, procedures for dealing with lawsuits on consumption are currently verbose. According to current regulations of civil court, consumers must to prove their losses if they want to sue someone for something. Vietnamese consumers are used to buy without invoice. That leads to no proof for suing in case they are deceived. In many cases, enterprises threaten consumers for proceedings. Vinastas every year received less than 1,000 petitions from consumers, however, the association has not yet implemented any lawsuit for over 20 past years because none of consumers not yet given the association power of attorney, Thang announced.

Many countries in the world have a special court system for protecting the rights of consumers. Power of consumers makes leading economic groups afraid. U.S. consumers have boycotted Nike’s goods. Indian consumers have opposed Coca-Cola group. And Japanese consumers have opposed a leading chemicals group Chisso and forced the group to compensate for its damages for environment.

 

Vietnam does not have such a system yet. Therefore, all lawsuits have to be judged according to civil laws, meeting many difficulties. Vietnam’s National Assembly has received many calls for a court to defend rights of consumers. Consumers only send their petition to the court. The court only deal with conflicts related to goods. Vietnam is drafting a law on defending consumers.

 

However, we now have not enough favorable conditions for setting up such a court. So we should apply an abridged regulation for lawsuits related to consumers. That is: consumers have right to sue any phase of production process of enterprises, from producing, circulating, to distributing goods, without any proof for damages.

We can not help doing that despite of its difficulty because we can not leave consumers alone.