TV수신료의 법적 성격과 공영방송재원조달에 관한 연구

Abstract

Television Broadcasting in the 21 century is an indispensable vehicle to

realize freedom of speech and democracy and plays a decisive role in forming

public opinions. It influences materially the development of political and social

democracy.

The Purpose of this study is to review the legality of public broadcasting

company's receiving fee in the perspective of comparative law research and to

find the way of improving the receiving fee collecting system.

In the TV Broadcasting Receiving Fee case, the Korean Constitutional Court

held that the article 36(1) of the Korean Broadcasting System Act, under

which the board of directors of KBS can decide the amount of TV receiving

fee merely by obtaining the approval of the Minister of Public Information

without any intervention of the National Assembly, does not comply with the

constitutional principle of statutory reservation(98 Hunba 70, May 27, 1999).

In this TV Broadcasting Receiving fee case, the Court says, the receiving

fee is a special assessment that is imposed only on those who own TV sets

for the purpose of creating financial resources for the specific public use.

After this decision, The National Assembly consolidated the Broadcasting

Act, The Composite Cable Broadcasting Act, The Management of Cable

Broadcasting Act, and the Korean Broadcasting System Act into The New

Broadcasting Act(2000. 1. 12. Act No. 6139). This Broadcasting Act States in

its Article 65 that the amount of the fee shall be decided by the board of

directors and approved by The National Assembly.

However, the character of receiving fee and the conditions of imposing...