§5.2.3 Ex officio control and total passivity on the part of the consumer

Consumers are generally expected to use available remedies and not to stay completely passive in order to benefit from protection under the UCTD. The Court has acknowledged that the effectiveness principle cannot be stretched so far as to require a national court to make up fully for a consumer's total inertia (386) in cases where they can bring effective remedies under reasonable conditions (387). Accordingly, the mere fact that a consumer may have to bring court proceedings and use remedies in order to obtain protection against unfair contract terms is not automatically contrary to the principle of effectiveness (388). At the same time, the Court's case law implies that national courts have to assess the unfairness of contract terms of their own motion even where consumers stayed completely passive, where such intervention is required by the equivalence principle, as discussed in Section 5.3, or by Article 7(1) or the effectiveness principle, as discussed in Section 5.4.

← 5.2.2 · All articles · 5.3 →

Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-07