Consumer and User Rights in Tourist Contracts
1. General Rules of Commercial Contracts and Their Sources
- General Provisions (Code of Commerce):
- Article 50: Business contracts, in all matters related to their requisites, amendments, exceptions, interpretation, extinction, and capacity of the parties, shall be governed in all matters not specifically set forth in this Code or in special Laws, by the general rules of ordinary Civil Law.
- Article 2: Acts of commerce, whether performed by business persons or not, and whether or not they are specified in this Code, shall be governed by its provisions; failing that, by the business practice generally observed in each city and, if not covered by either of these rules, by those of ordinary Civil Law. The acts included in this Code and any others of a similar nature shall be considered acts of commerce.
- Civil Code:
- Article 1.1: The sources of the Spanish legal system are statutes, customs, and general legal principles.
2. Tourist Contracts: Civil and Commercial Law Aspects
- Competence: Section 149, Spanish Constitution
(1) The State shall have exclusive competence over the following matters: vi) Commercial, criminal, and penitentiary legislation; procedural legislation, without prejudice to the necessary specialties in these fields arising from the peculiar features of the substantive law of the Self-Governing Communities. viii) Civil legislation, without prejudice to the preservation, modification, and development by the Self-Governing Communities of their Civil Law, Foral or Special, whenever these exist, and traditional charters. In any event, rules for the application and effectiveness of legal provisions, civil relations arising from the forms of marriage, keeping of records and drawing up public instruments, bases of contractual liability, rules for resolving conflicts of law, and determination of the sources of law in conformity, in this last case, with the rules of traditional charters or with those of Foral or Special Laws.
- Section 51, Spanish Constitution
(1) The Public Authorities shall guarantee the protection of consumers and users and shall, by means of effective measures, safeguard their safety, health, and legitimate economic interests. (2) The Public Authorities shall promote the information and education of consumers and users, foster their organizations, and hear them on those matters affecting their members, under the terms established by law. (3) Within the framework of the provisions of the foregoing paragraphs, the law shall regulate domestic trade and the system of licensing commercial products.
3. Consumer Protection in Tourist Contracts
- Section 53.3, Spanish Constitution
Recognition, respect, and protection of the principles recognized in Chapter 3 shall guide legislation, judicial practice, and actions by the Public Authorities. They may only be invoked before the ordinary courts in accordance with the legal provisions implementing them.
- Royal Legislative Decree 1/2007, of 16 November 2007, Approving the Revised Text of the General Law for the Protection of Consumers and Users and Other Supplementary Laws
- Article 2. Scope of Application: This law shall be applicable to the relations between consumers or users and entrepreneurs.
- Article 3. General Concepts of Consumer and User: For the purposes of this law, and without prejudice to the express provisions of Books III and IV, consumers and users are natural or legal persons acting in a sphere that falls outside entrepreneurial or professional activity.
- Article 4. Concept of Entrepreneur: For the purposes of this law, entrepreneurs are considered to be those natural or legal persons acting in the context of their entrepreneurial or professional activity, whether this is public or private.