고령소비자 보호를 위한 법제개선방안

Elderly consumers tend to decrease the negotiation skills and judgement to deal with operators on the nature of life cycle because of the physical and mental changes. Because the knowledge of the elderly is obsolete, they can´t respond quickly to rapidly changing social phenomena characteristic. In the situation of the elderly to interfere with rational judgment about such transactions, the elderly people are forced to be placed in the vulnerable groups. Due to such vulnerability, They are bound to be the main targets of unscrupulous operators seeking to access the property after their retirement. In South Korea, which is aging faster progress than other countries, protection issues for the elderly is one of the most important social problems. In order to solve this problem, to ensure the justification for why should particularly protect the elderly in terms of the transaction safety must be made first. Because the judgement of elderly is different for each individual, it is so difficult that establishes special civil system to protect the elderly. Nevertheless, if the elderly consumer suffers damage, civil protection that can be preferentially applied is the method according to the adult guardianship system. The adult guardianship system was introduced almost two years in Korea. In fact utilization of the system is still low. In oder to function the legal system as a legal device efficiently to protect the elderly, the new system improvements for building a reliable legal system is needed. In addition to the civil protection ways to protect the elderly as consumers, there are claiming invalidity of the contract by reason of devoid of mental capacity, claiming invalidity of the contract by reason of unfair laws acts, cancellation of the contract due to error and fraud or obsessive compulsive etc. In addition, elderly consumers are protected to the exercise of the right of withdrawal on special laws related consumer transactions. Despite this legal protection methods, there is a limit also to protect elderly consumers. In order to ensure more effective protection of elderly consumers, This paper was aimed at dealing with legal issues in the transaction of the elderly. In addition, it presents more efficient ways to secure the protection of elderly consumers. In particular, the most desirable way to protect elderly consumers is to establish special provisions in special laws related consumer transactions to protect the elderly consumers. For examples, the new provisions on the right of withdrawal to be applied the elderly consumers will have to establish. And It will have to be new provisions that alleviate the requirements of the damages claim. It will also consider ways to reinforce the stringent than the obligation to instruct and provide information to operators which aimed to deal with elderly consumers.