Consumer tribunal in 2006

[dominic]

http://www.finance24.com/Finance/Economy/0,,1518-25_1652953,00.html

Tribunal to help consumers
26/01/2005 22:17 - (SA)

Mathabo le Roux
Pretoria - Legislation that will remove consumer complaints from the legal system and settle them through a tribunal, is on its way.

The department of trade and industry said on Wednesday the system will offer a cheap and effective alternative to a civil case.

The legislation will be valid for all service providers, but specifically poor service provision from the public sector and municipal service providers will come under the spotlight.

Deputy trade and industry minister Lindiwe Hendricks says a consumer policy has already been drawn up and is available for comment.

The draft legislation will be tabled in parliament by the end of January next year.

"With the policy we recognise how important it is to give consumers a voice.

"It underlines the importance of creating a mechanism to which consumers can turn.

"The policy will soon be accepted and forms the basis for national legislation," Hendricks said.

A survey the department commissioned last year indicates that more than 85% of respondents want more information about their rights as consumers.

"It clearly points to the importance of creating a framework wherein consumer rights enjoy acknowledgement."

The department also plans to create a separate agency that will ensure that the legislation progresses.

The structural framework is similar to that of the competition tribunal, which means a consumer agency will investigate cases and refer them to a consumer tribunal for a hearing and a fine.

"It's important that we do not undermine the legal system, but currently consumer cases are mostly prosecuted by the legal system as criminal cases.

"We want to aim at decriminalising some consumer cases and will hopefully ensure in this way that such cases will progress through the system more swiftly and efficiently," said Astrid Ludin, deputy director-general of consumer and corporate regulation.


...more bad news for telkom if it ever sees the light of day

 

[Liansky]

Your missing the boat...

 

[Gooku]

It is great news. The help is on its way

 

[Gooku]

The difference is Tribunal is a court.It has mechanism to enforce its rulings.
This is a giant step forward in consumer right protection.We thank the government for listening to our voices.

 

[dominic]

imo and not withstanding my experiential cynicism this could be a very positive step in changing the consumer culture in this country......as a nation, and probably for historical reasons, we are far too accepting of the **** we get dished up every day

the initiative should be seen in the context of the department of trade and industry's rationalisation of consumer protection in general - while it is too early to predict outcomes i for one am heartened by the amount of activity

a brief glance through some of the consumer complaint-related threads on the forum indicates that there are many folks here who could seriously use an option like this one....bear in mind that to go to mediation or arbitration first you generally need the consent of both parties. Telkom, for example, are never going to give this consent given there policy of winning battles because of their economic power and the battery of lawyers on retainers which they have. litigation is mostly useless and expensive.

in the ICT law area SA regularly follows the lead of the EU (consumer-focused) as opposed to that of the USA (market-focused i.e. do not regulate and the market will punish those who screw consumers) which is correct given the unfree nature of the SA market - so increasingly things like the ECT Act and the fortcoming ISP regulations have consumer protection provisions which actually have some substance and give rights to consumers

if anyone is interested in following this up then check out some of the initiatives on the dti site - www.dti.gov.za - there is a Consumer and Corporate Regulation Division - National Consumer Survey and a Consumer Law
Benchmark Study Report

would be nice if those interested on the forum can make similar input to that provided on telecomms issues in respect of consumer protection - may not be the specific focus of the forum but it is certainly related

 

[dominic]

have registered www.consumerlaw.co.za & will put some energy into it over the next few months

idea being not to duplicate hellopeter et al but to create a resource which tries to get the big picture in terms of where the law is at and what rights consumers actually have and their options in terms of actioning them

better pissed off than pissed on

 

[Gooku]

Another reason for my scepticism was the timeframe - 2006 - IMO government etc just too slow.

12 month time frame to implement new legislation ,this is "world class speed",in fact it will usually take longer in USA or EC to pass new laws in parliament .

This shows government is taking this seriously .

 

[dominic]

Do you plan to have a similar [to MyADSL] vBulletin forum & RSS Feeds?

for starters just content with a p'raps a bloglet- that there is plenty to be getting on with and maintaining while there are little hungry mouths to be fed....if it turns out to be useful and some other folk want to get involved then a forum could be an extremely valuable goodie (as is this one)...sharing of experiences, frustrations and successes and dispensing of encouragement and advice helping to create a degree of momentum towards action etc etc

initially tho do not want a bitch and whine site - rather practical, objective intelligence

..12 months would be as quick as it is unlikely sorry to say (which is not to say govt is not taking it seriously - will give them credit for their effort while reserving opinion on the content)

 

[Liansky]

Why not focus it entirly on providing consumers with coherent interpretations of the law rather than turning it into a consumer message board. In turn, the mods of this site could agree on adding your site as a usefull link displayed prominently(this is what i find lacking). Futhermore, you could allow individuals to send you questions regarding their rights, and then on a weekly basis, answer about ten highly relevant questions.

For eg, a member could have some legal difficulty getting Telkom to comply with their legal responsibilities. They come here, explain their situation, and then they could either be directed to your site, or some helpfull individual could go out of his way to collect this info.

But here's the really crappy part. That damn search button. Say you have already pasted 500 solutions, and somebody requires an answer to his or her problem. Out of 500 articles, there are 20 possibilities from which he can get the information he requires. I mean, i go to a site, type in a search, and out 1000 sources, i finally find information at source 999.

In addition, you could even make a nice little profit. People like what you do, and then they actually pay you to do in depth research and offer some legal and technical advice. Advice is priceless these days.

Oh, um, i don't think institutions like the CCMA deals with consumer complaints. And if they did, i don't advise anyone to go to one of them.

 

[Liansky]

Conciliation and Mediation...

 

[Liansky]

point taken...

 

[dominic]

Why not focus it entirly on providing consumers with coherent interpretations of the law rather than turning it into a consumer message board.

That would be the idea and is a damn difficult thing to do on its own - break it down into areas and give people an idea at least of where to start...input appreciated

also not sure where the CCMA reference came from but, when considering the potential value of a consumer tribunal, think about how the CCMA has revolutionised employee access to the law (if you don't want to think then take my word for it) - much individual labour law was, imho, irrelevant despite the rights it purported to give because there was no avenue for people to exercise these rights simply and inexpensively...the CCMA has changed this with the result that a lot of the little folk who were being screwed in employment scenarios can now actually do something about it

and funnily enough they are - 74 691 cases were heard by the CCMA between 1 April and 31 October 2004, 81% of which relate to unfair dismissals; for the 2004/2005 financial year to date the settlement average is 67%

 

[Liansky]

I studied Labour Relations so i automtically look at it from that point of view.... the CCMA thing i mean.

But yeah, it's interesting to note that there are very few cases lost by the employees. It is even more interesting to note that in some cases, the employer was not at fault. This has to do with the fact that the employee knows more about the Labour Relations Act than the employer. If that can be applied to the consumer, then Vodacom might drop it's 3G charges even further, and Telkom might even provide an actual service. Hell, i don't even care if the consumer is at fault. I smaak a bit of revenge.

 

[kilps]

Sounds like a nice idea in principle - but so was letting Telkom remain a monopoly, BEE and parlamentry floor crossing - so we'll see then shall we

 

[dominic]

Has anything happened? are we going to be able to tribunalise Telkodemonopoly's rearend in 2006?

ic the relentless is not even going to wait for 2006