Study On The Cooling-off Period System In China

On March15th2014, the new consumer protection law(hereinafter the newconsumer law) is formally put into force. Compared with consumer protection law of1994, the new consumer law has been modified a lot. Among these modifications,article25is a highlight. Article25of the new consumer protection law is about“cooling off period” system which makes the controversial “free reason for return” areality. Since then, consumer’s “cooling off period” system is established in ourcountry. Actually,“cooling off period” refers to a system in which consumers canterminate a contract without business operator’s permission within a period of timeafter signing a contract. In that case, consumers are not liable for the breach of acontract.“Cooling off period” is characterized by legality, non-reason, oneness of thesubject, specificality of application, exclusion, etc. It is based on limited rationality,essential equality and liberty of contract principles and aims at seeking a balancebetween the interests of consumers and business operators. Besides,“cooling offperiod” tends to protect consumers in some degree. The “cooling off period” inarticle25of the new consumer law is of great significance in protecting the interestsof consumers through a legislative way. What’s more,“cooling off period” systemmakes up for the deficiency of protecting consumers’ interests in remote transactionslike online shopping, etc. Unfortunately, there exist many applicable questions inarticle25such as the ambiguous interpretation of “goods in good condition” and“not suitable for return”. These questions leave plenty of controversial space forconsumers as well as business operators. In addition, the lack of detail regulationslike “what’s the time to count ‘seven days’” and “ways to inform business operatorsof return” also leads to inadequate legal protection for consumers. In article25of thenew consumer law, the scope of application is narrowly limited in network,television, telephone, mail order and so on. In fact, it’s far from regulations inforeign countries.It’s inevitable that the “cooling off period” system in China is not complete yet. “Cooling off period” is just established in our country, and it needs some time toadapt to online shopping gradually. Considering the current situations in China, theauthor suggests as follows: introduce principle of honesty and trustworthiness andpromote both sides including consumers and business operators to obey it, that is,sellers operate sincerely while consumers do not abuse their relative rights;concretize detail regulations of the new consumer protection law, so disputesbetween consumers and business operators led by the ambiguous clauses will bedecreased; build up other auxiliary systems and promote the enforcement of “coolingoff period”.