ABSTRACT
The reliance on public enforcement to protect vulnerable consumers is even more pressing because there seems to be a disconnect between attempts to regulate for vulnerable consumers and progress on the mechanical access to justice front. To cure the ills of the justice system and help vulnerable consumers access justice, a cure that goes further than a plaster is necessary. Inclusivity would call for developing an appetite for action at policy level to shift the focus away from ‘vulnerable’ consumers and back on the weaker party. The political, economic and societal recognition of consumer law ended in consumer bureaucracy and consumer technocracy. Seen in this way, theorising and politicising consumer law in the age of the circular economy requires the re-politicisation of consumer law as a necessary requirement. An inclusive approach would require making vulnerability a core value of consumer protection policies and regulatory reforms rather than an afterthought as is currently the case.
