5.2 Goals, Significance, and Mechanisms of Consumer Protection Legislation

The goals: the safe-and-fair market; the honest information (the labelling's truth); the competition's health (the consumer's choice as the competition's engine — the Competition Law interface, LAW5809); the vulnerable's shield (the poor, the rural, the elderly consumer's faces); the market's trust (the economy's infrastructure). The significance: the welfare economics' correction (the market failures' legal answer); the human-rights face (the consumer's rights as the livelihood rights — the Constitution's Art 44 face: the verified right to quality goods-and-services and compensation); the development's link (the standards' culture, the certification's world). The mechanisms' menu: 1. The standards-and-labels — the mandatory information (the ingredients, the dates, the prices). 2. The prohibitions-and-offences — the false advertising, the adulteration, the hoarding (the criminal-and-administrative penalties). 3. The redressal forums — the consumer courts-and-bodies (the quick, cheap, accessible claims). 4. The regulators — the market-monitoring machinery (the inspections, the seizures). 5. The collective faces — the consumer organisations (the class actions' culture), the councils (the policy bodies). 6. The self-regulation — the codes-and-ombudsman (the advertising's self-discipline).