Special consumer defense courts: expanding rights within democracy doi: 10.5007/2175-7984.2010v9n17p359

Abstract

The present paper is a case study analyzing the institutionalization of consumers’ rights through the  implantation of Special Consumer Defense Courts in the city of Salvador, state of Bahia, during the years 2000- 2005. We look at how access to justice, in accordance with the principles and premises of the 1988 Constitution, has actually unfolded. This  study in political sociology is situated within the ambit of social  justice and the broadening of modern rights that the State has operationalized through some specific organs. Our data reveal that the consumer rights included in the legal services provided through these Special Courts contribute toward raising and broadening people’s consciousness on the role of rights within social relations, at the site where consumers and economic forces (firms) confront another, within contemporary capitalism. Firstly, resorting to the courts is important in order to validate consumers’ grievances and to educate them to better understand the relevance of rights; in the second place, the services provided by these courts show that State action in providing legal services is not always able to provide adequate  attention to citizens’ demands, given the paucity of resources  available for these purposes. However, in general terms we can assert that access to public mechanisms of justice has contributed to broadening citizenship and toward a political culture that emphasizes the role of rights in the plural forms through which today’s subject-citizen is constituted.