Mária Patakyová

The program of the social protection of the consumer extends beyond the boundaries of ensuring of the single internal market and it ultimately presents the necessity to solve two contradictory requirements – the openness of the market and consumers protection. This contradiction is at present solved in the Treaty establishing the European Community as amended by the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Treaty of Nice in such way that the field of the consumer protection is formulated as an independent policy belonging to the Community as a whole, which is in this context entitled or has a duty to monitor policies of Member States.

The legal protection of consumer in the Slovak legal system significantly infringes an autonomous will of the contracting parties in contracting those types of contracts, which are special designated types of contracts transposed into our legal system in connection with the European Law or in connection with conditions stipulated for the particular selected range of contracts (or some of their prerequisites).

In connection with the development of law on consumer protection in terms of the Slovak legal order it is necessary to deal with the implementation of the purpose of the legal protection of consumers into the field of the commercial contractual obligations. It is necessary because the choice of the Commercial Code (§ 262) in relation with consumers also causes the decrease of their legal protection and thus ultimately the diminishing of efforts promoted at the European level.