I contratti dei consumatori tra diritto privato generale e diritti secondi

General principles of Italian contract law provide equal treatment of contracting parties, but they do not assure that both of them will be able to assert their own freedom of contract, especially in case of an important inequality of bargaining power. For this reason special rules (the so-called secondary law) are provided in order to protect one of the parties - consumer or dealer - who is less capable than the other one of standing up for itself in the free market. But these rules do not cover every matter. Therefore, the general principles of private law (the so-called primary law) might help to fill gaps and to reach decisions in conformity with a rational and unitary system. The primary law might be not adequate, though, to such application towards a case regulated by the secondary law, featuring a peculiar protection. Similarly, a special rule cannot be automatically applied to supplement another special rule.