By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 31 1997 (IPS)

Brazilian consumers groups are joining forces for the first time, creating a national association to fight parliamentarians trying to neuter the country’s powerful consumer rights code.

Brazil’s non-governmental consumer groups have formed a commission to draft new constitutional statutes and an association to represent consumers’ interests at the national level, promoting information exchange, joint action and coordinating activities.

Currently, there are more than 50 ‘civilian consumer agencies’ at work in Brazil, in addition to the government’s own consumer protection network, which operates under the umbrella organisation Procons.

This broad range of government agencies is supported by state governments, provincial assemblies, municipal councils and mayor’s offices, says Sizefredo Paulo Paz, head of the Technical Division of the Brazilian Consumer Defense Institute (BCDI). The BCDI is the nation’s largest non-governmental consumer affairs organisation and celebrated its tenth anniversary last week.

Brazil’s consumer movement began in the 1970s when the government launched its first Procons affiliates. The movement gained momentum with the end of the 21 year military dictatorship in 1985, when concerned citizens felt increasingly freer to speak out.

The consumer associations gained further strength as a means of monitoring companies failing to hold their prices to state-set levels under Brazil’s 1986 anti-inflationary Cruzado Plan.

And in 1991, making use of a 1986 constitutional reform which codified consumers rights, the Brazilian legislature approved the Consumer Defence Code, one of the world’s most sophisticated pieces of consumer rights legislation — a tremendous boost to Brazilian consumers.

But Paz now warns that this landmark legislation is under threat from revisionists seeking to undermine its powers with a series of parliamentary amendments to its clauses.

To combat this threat, which has been largely “hidden from public view,” Brazil’s non-governmental groups used the BCDI anniversary as an opportunity to create a National Committee for Code Preservation.

According to Celso Russomano, vice-president of the Justice Ministry’s Consumer Defence Commission, Brazil’s national parliament is currently discussing 43 amendments to the 1991 code. Most of these amendments seek to erode existing guarantees while contributing nothing new to consumer protection law, he adds.

Josue Rios, legal director for BCDI, says there are 174 bills under consideration that have direct relationship to the Code. All these pieces of legislation are now being evaluated by the Preservation Committee.

According to Paz, another threat to Brazilian consumers arises from Mercosur — the Southern Cone Common Market grouping Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay — which established regional trade policy “with no reference to consumer protection”.

Since Mercosur’s other members have less rigorous consumer legislation, if any at all, there is constant pressure for Brazil to back pedal on its own consumer friendly commitments.

Paz noted that economic globalisation causes “national governments to abdicate sovereignty to transnational business organisations like the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation”. This requires consumers to “coordinate activity in order to retain the ground they’ve gained,” he added.

Civilian groups which participated in the Sao Paulo meeting also approved regulations concerning self-governance. These regulations are based on four principles: financial and political independence, democracy, solidarity and a social commitment that transcends mere consumer defence.

For example, Paz notes that quality-of-life issues are appropriate matters for Committee attention. Non-governmental groups have also declared opposition to private entities which seek to profit under the guise of consumer defence.

Paz says that although grass roots consumer concern “is insufficiently mobilised,” the nation’s consumer movement has made considerable progress in recent years, spreading from the industralised south to the north.

BCDI has 40,000 members, a relatively low number when compared with European consumer unions. But Paz says that civilian activity in Brazil is sizeable when contrasted to other developing nations. Membership has grown steadily since 1993.

The Sao Paulo-based BCDI focuses activity on three areas: distribution of information (including a monthly magazine called Consumer Inc.), legal action and legislative representation, lobbying regulatory bodies and monitoring Mercosur.

Meanwhile, BCDI’s testing programme, which compares the quality and safety of Brazilian goods and services — from toys and condoms to private health care options — has become an important reference service for Brazilian consumers.

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