Consumer Right to Safe Product: The Application of Strict Criminal Liability in Product Safety Legislations in Malaysia

Consumer right to safety is one of the earliest rights that has been recognised by the late President John F Kennedy in 1962, when he presented a speech to the American Congress. Later, this right had been recognised by the International Consumer Unions (presently known as the Consumers International). Presently, the consumer right to safety is one of the basic rights of the consumers that has been recognised universally, together with other basic rights, namely, the right to basic needs, the right to information, the right to choice, the right to redress, the right to be heard, the right to consumer education and the right to live in a clean environment. The objective of this article is to analyse the application of criminal liability in product safety legislations. This article will adopt the content analysis method by analysing the provisions of certain legislations to see the extent of the application of criminal liability in those adopted legislations. The findings of the research show that all of the studied legislations have adopted the strict criminal liability. The strict criminal liability offence is widely used as a means of deterring traders and producers from engaging in certain types of trading abuse which operate to the detriment of consumers. It is believed that the strict criminal liability can protect the consumers from unsafe products and uphold the consumer right to safe products