Giving a meaning to World Consumer Rights Day

On March 15 of each year, Consumers International commemorates World Consumer Rights Day. Simply recalling this day without doing at least a sanity check on the state of consumer protection in Malta renders this event meaningless.

For most us, March 15 is probably just another day in the calendar. Yet, Consumer Rights Day should be an event that concerns each and every one of us as consumers of a multitude of goods and services. Take this year’s theme: Your Money Your Rights. It is certainly of some significance to those Maltese investors who, through no fault of their own, have seen the value of many of their financial investments take a nose dive with little prospect of improvement for the immediate future. And, yet, apart from some vigorous rumblings by afflicted investors about the Bank of Valletta property fund saga little has been said (remember Lehman Brothers and RBS and the Argentina bonds in the early 2000s).

Regrettably, the consumer movement in Malta remains weak and poorly supported by consumers. A cursory look at the blogs – when some consumer-related issue arises ­– gives the false impression that we are a nation of active consumers united in an all-powerful consumer movement prepared to stand up to any malpractices that threaten consumer well-being. And, yet, nothing could be further from the truth.

We are all for consumer rights when an issue affects our pockets directly. But that is as far as most of us go. On paper we have a fairly impressive list of laws protecting us as consumers, yet, in practice recourse to the rights we have at law remains poor. Take unfair terms legislation – which has now been in place for well over 10 years. The number of cases attacking the use of unfair terms in trader and consumer agreements is pitiful, to say the least. Something, somewhere is simply not functioning as it should. Apathy by consumers in general may be one reason. However, my own view is that the lack of a properly resourced consumer association backed by full-time professional staff and financial resources is one of the main reasons why consumer protection has in practice not really taken off in Malta.

The proposed Bill on collective redress published late last year may in part help give some strength to the consumer movement. The main obstacle, however, is the sore lack of financial and human resources. The government can take a leaf out of what happened in other countries notably in Eastern Europe where many countries lacking a tradition of active consumer movements given the controlled economy culture they were subjected to previously, decided to provide substantial support to voluntary consumer organisations recognising, perhaps, that the ultimate strength in ensuring adequate consumer protection lies in having strong and active consumer organisations that are able to effectively counter the influence of the business lobby.

Unless a similar initiative is taken in Malta consumer activism will remain very much a lame duck. The real effectiveness of the movement can only emerge if it is adequately resourced to initiate legal proceedings on behalf of consumers to curb negative practices impacting consumers.