Meeting with the Ministry of Trade

30. 1. 2025.

Representatives of the Judicial Base South and the Committee for Human Rights Niš, Mihajlo Čolak and Ivan Grujić, met with representatives of the Consumer Protection Department at the Ministry of Internal and External Trade.

During the meeting, we briefly presented the key findings of a research study on the effectiveness of judicial consumer protection, conducted by the Judicial Base South and the Committee in 2024. The research was conducted at the national level using a sample of 14 large retail companies that sell footwear and technical goods.

We selected footwear and technical products as these are the two categories of goods consumers most frequently complain about.

Given the well-known lack of proper records on consumer disputes in courts, this approach allowed us to obtain a representative sample. We analyzed 220 court decisions and identified some interesting data regarding the effectiveness of judicial consumer protection. We reminded the Ministry that we are members of two Working Groups of the National Convention on the European Union: the Working Group for Chapter 23, Judiciary and Fundamental Rights, and the Working Group for Chapter 27, Consumer Protection and Health.

Therefore, we approach this issue from both the standpoint of consumer protection and the perspective of the rule of law and the functioning of the judiciary. It was agreed that no strategic document currently addresses judicial consumer protection.

The meeting participants agreed that the research findings could be helpful in the Ministry of Trade in the drafting process of the new Consumer Protection Strategy.