Israel Consumer Council CEO has asked the Minister of Education to introduce compulsory legal studies in the high schools, so that the pupils are capable to exercise their civil rights as well as their rights as consumers.
The 40,000 complaints the Council receives each year against businesses reveal a deplorable situation in which it is difficult for the consumers to protect their rights.
This difficulty is mainly due to the complicated legal language in which laws and contractual documents are formulated. This legal language should be used in some cases in order for consumers to turn based arguments against the business, in order to exercise their rights; but here begins the reluctance among some consumers.
This difficulty has been exploited by some business owners in order to ignore the rights of the consumers, without fearing or any defensive capabilities in their response. Thus, it happens that consumers are in a situation of inferiority and their consumer rights are being trampled.
The position of the Council is that through the educational system, it is possible to provide students - who are the future citizens – with the skills that are necessary to manage their business. The legal language will help students and will give them means of self-defense, which will allow them to be better and less vulnerable consumers when businesses act unfairly.
Israel Consumer Council CEO, lawyer Mr. Ehud Peleg: "The intention is not to train more lawyers. The legal language is the most important self-defense tool for the consumer in a reality of unfair commercial life. Lawyer Mr. Peleg also says that the difficulty of consumers in understanding the legal language is often exploited by businesses and service providers who violate their right to carry out informed choices about the best purchase for them. The Council's CEO adds that this weakness of consumers also adversely affects their ability to react after their rights have been violated, that many of them find it difficult to drafting based letters of complaint, and that due to this difficulty, some of them give up their right".
