Presentation of the Draft Law on Consumer Protection

6. 8. 2025.

The Judiciary Base South participated in the Presentation of the Draft Law on Consumer Protection, which was held on August 6 in the ceremonial hall of the Ministry of Internal and Foreign Trade. The presentation was organized as part of the public consultations, which began on August 4 and will continue until August 24.

The presentation was attended by over 50 participants (sellers, traders, representatives of consumer associations, and others). The impression is that some changes are undeniably good (especially those implementing specific EU directives). However, the change in Article 4, paragraph 1, causes concern.

Namely, the current law in Article 4, paragraph 1, reads:

The provisions of this law are applied to the relations between consumers and traders, which are the subject of this law, except in the case of the existence of special provisions with the same objective, which regulate the relations in question, which provide a higher level of protection in accordance with special regulations.

In the draft of the new law, article 4, paragraph 1, reads:

The provisions of this law apply to the relations between consumers and traders, which are the subject of this law, except in cases where special regulations exist that contain provisions with the same goal and regulate the relevant relations; in such cases, the special regulations apply.

Therefore, merchants are allowed to have special regulations that do not require a higher level of protection compared to the law, but can also have a lower level of security. This potentially derogates from the standards of protection provided by law.

During the discussion that followed the presentation, Mihajlo Čolak - coordinator of the Judiciary Base South and program director of the Niš Human Rights Committee, suggested to the Ministry that it would be good to extend the public hearing, at least until the end of September. Namely, the public hearing was held suddenly, in a month when many actors dealing with this topic are on annual vacation, and other public events will not accompany the hearing itself, nor will there be any public presentations or discussions outside of Belgrade. The Ministry pointed out that the extension of the public consultation is unlikely.

The Judiciary Base South will send its comments to the Ministry within the period of the public hearing.