THE RIGHT TO REVOCATION OF CONSENT, IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW CIVIL CODE

The article encompasses the main zones of incidence, in the New Civil Code, of the right to retract the prior consent, correlated with the existing legislation regulating consumers’ rights, namely the off-premises contracts, contracts agreed at distance, including electronic bargains and credits offered to consumers. First, we briefly discuss the various possibilities of consent withdrawal, as described by national law and examine the discretionary character of withdrawal rights. Next, attention will be given to concrete aspects of retract exercise and to the question whether it is possible for retracts to be seen as cases of progressive formations of agreements. Finally, some attention will be given to the legal right of retract that has the judicial nature of a prerogative conferring unilateral control over contract formation, by which one understands the discretionary exercise of the right, as the author is subject to no duty to motivate his/her retract, his/her option being not censurable by courts of law. The article also analyses the exercise of the withdrawal right, as the right to retract the prior assent does not depend upon any action or reaction of the professional party to the contract. Notification of the contractual partner upon the exercise of the unilateral retract right exonerates the retracting party of any contractual obligation that the denounced contract may have primarily generated, with the only exception of the buyer’s duty to return the product to the vendor, subsequent to contract dissolution. The examination of the concept of discretionary rights also allows us to show the interrelated way in which the indivisibility and the irrevocable character of the contractual party’s will to breach the contract actually operate in the light of the New Civil Code.