Piotr Guțul, president of the national public association “Consumer Protection”, which has worked for over 15 years, congratulate the citizens on the occasion of World Consumer Rights Day. He called on the consumers to demand that their rights should be ensured by the national legislation and the international legal framework.

In a news conference at IPN, Piotr Guțul said different legislative amendments were made in time, but these weren’t always for the consumers’ benefit. For example, criminal responsibility for the non-observance of consumer rights was annulled. Later, changes were made that allow the persons to be represented in court only by lawyers or a relative licensed in law. This way the public associations can no longer represent in court consumers whose rights were violated.

According to him, given that the state does not respect the rights of consumers, the association plans to seek the observance of these rights at a protest. They tried to discuss with representatives of parties the violations of consumer rights for many times, but all in vain. The association made approaches to a number of European ambassadors working in Chisinau and is waiting for responses from these.

Piotr Guțul noted the politicians and state functionaries are not preoccupied with the observance of consumer rights. In such a small country as Moldova, it is not so hard to bring things in order so as to improve the situation for the citizens’ benefit. He said he could run in eventual snap elections and could even create a new party in support of consumers.

Piotr Guțul added that during the 15 years of work they carried out many investigations, preventing the privatization of the Botanical Garden and denouncing schemes that hampered the collection of millions of lei into the state budget.

World Consumer Rights Day is annually marked on March 15.