청소년보호법제상의 연령기준에 대한 법적 검토 - 매체규제법을 중심으로 -

The legal definition of the youth is one of the cores of the legislative system of youth protection. Age-standard as legal concept should be formal and uniform for stability and predictability of legal system. But age-standard of Korean legislative system of youth protection is plural, such as 18 or 19. Thus it raises the problem that the contradiction among legislations makes industries, users and law enforcers confuse. In particular, it is serious in media regulation area. The cause of discord of age-standard between Youth Protection Act and media regulation acts is the difference between youth protection policy and media industry policy. The youth protection policy calls for the protection from harmful contents, therefore higher age-standard. On the other hand media industry policy requests the enlargement of market, therefore lower age-standard. And the different government organizations and congress standing committee take charge of two policies. The plenary session of the National Assembly supported the media regulation acts, inclusiveness of the lower age-standard as the definition of youth, in spite of passing Youth Protection Act that prescribed the different, higher, age-standard. Under such legal condition, people are confronted by a conflictive situation and unavoidable violation of the law. For example, 'video bang' trader allows the youth over 18 but under 19 years to use +18 rating video watching service. Video bang is an off-limits place to youth(-19) under Youth Protection Act. The Supreme Court decided that video bang trader was not guilty, because we didn't demand him to obey the law. The decision of the Supreme Court isn't the solution of legal problem and adheres the contradiction among legislations. Thus, a fundamental means of setting legal problem is not a interpretation of law but a new legislation. With regard of the facility of legislation and the expansion of freedom of expression, the legislative system of youth protection need to be standardized the youth-age to 18 years. The virtue of age-standard as legal concept is not an older or younger age but formality and stability.