헌법에 의한 소비자보호의 의의와 한계

This article discusses the meaning and limitations of consumer protection in the Constitution with the recent debate on constitutional amendment on consumer protection. The conclusion based on the author's point of view is as follows. First, There is no need to recognize consumer rights as social fundamental rights under the Constitution: Consumer rights are already partially guaranteed by other fundamental rights in the fundamental right system. Even though consumer rights can be newly introduced as fundamental rights, they have only meaning as abstract rights that requires further concreteization in the end. Consumer concept is a situational concept and ultimately consumer rights should be implemented in accordance with consumer policy through legal provisions. Second, the Constitution can protect the consumer's rights sufficiently in an institutional way guaranteeing objective value order. Consumers can ask for prohibition of infringement on the state and request positive act through the legal binding power of the Constitutions. However, if consumer legislation is inadequate, it is desirable that the issue of whether positive legislation can be requested to the government should be resolved by legislative policy. Third, the government amendment bill is meant to declare consumer protection as a constitutional value order, not as a fundamental right with subjective right. It is necessary to revise a few expressions of the amendment to grasp the contents under the guarantee of the consumer protection system. Considering the legislative deficiencies in the consumer damage relief phase, there is also a need to add an explicit provision on the damage relief phase in the amendment.