Japan Press Weekly

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2022 February 16 - 22 [POLITICS]

JCP and CDPJ jointly submit bill to protect consumers' rights

The Japanese Communist Party and the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan on February 15 jointly submitted to the Diet a bill to further protect the rights of consumers.

The bill will strengthen the rights of consumers by such means as imposing restrictions on the delivery of contract documents by e-mail and extending a "cooling-off" period pertaining to the contracts the consumers below the age of 20 signed.

A paper contract document was previously required, so someone in the signer's family could carefully examine the contract more easily. However, in June 2021, the digitalization of the terms of product/service contracts was allowed in defiance of concerns expressed by many consumers' organizations about the possible spread of damages caused by malicious contracts. At that time, the opposition parties jointly demanded amendments to the digitalization stipulation.

After submitting the bill, JCP member of the House of Representatives Motomura Nobuko said that in order to prevent damage caused by electronic product/service agreements, "We will work on the ruling parties to have the bill enacted so that more consumers can be more broadly protected."