The national consumer rights body will get the nod to represent consumers in courts this year, a senior official of the group has said.

"The Consumer Protection Law will be amended this year, and we will be allowed to help consumers through legal representation," Yang Hongcan, secretary-general of the China Consumers' Association, told China Daily.

The CCA is a government-funded, non-profit organization established in 1984 to protect consumers' rights. It has 3,138 branches across the country.

For the past 25 years, the CCA's role has been limited to mediating in disputes between consumers and vendors before the matter entered the legal process, Yang said.

"Now, once the issue reaches the courts, we cannot do anything," Yang said.

Citing last year's nationwide tainted-milk scandal as an example, Yang said that if the association had the right to represent consumers in court, the victims - more than 290,000 - would have been able to register their cases with the local CCA office and entrust it to represent them in court.

That would have saved them both time and money, and provided them with information about their legal rights, he said.

Qiu Baochang, dean of Beijing-based Huijia Law Firm, said: "In many cases such as the milk scandal, it is hard for the consumer, as an individual, to have his or her rights protected. It is necessary to empower consumer organizations to represent groups of consumers in court," Qiu said.

Many consumers applaud the move. "It will definitely help better protect consumers, especially low-income people," Liu Yi, 27, an employee at the China Science and Technology Museum, told China Daily.

The CCA received nearly 648,000 complaints from 4.38 million consumers last year and helped them recover more than 66 million yuan (US$9.7 million) through measures such as refunds and product recalls.

The amount represents a decrease of more than 20 percent from the year before, the CCA reported.

The figures show that consumers are getting more savvy by avoiding pitfalls and sellers are becoming more aware of customer rights, but there is still much to do, Yang said.

To that effect, he said the association would propose extending protection of consumers by expanding the categories of consumers and complaints.

Under the current law, consumers refer to those who buy goods or services considered daily necessities. Housing, cars and luxury items are outside the ambit of the law.

"This is unfair to them. So this year, we will try to have the definition of consumer expanded in the amendment to the law," Yang said.

Currently, these categories of consumers are protected by other laws and regulations, which, unlike the Consumer Protection Law, do not require a fraudulent seller to cough up twice the price of the goods.

The CCA also launched a guide to educate consumers on their rights on World Consumers Rights Day, which fell yesterday.

(China Daily March 16, 2009)