Commission for the protection of minors in the media
The Commission for Youth Media Protection ( KJM ) is an organ of the state media authorities in Germany , which is responsible for content control in the area of transnational private broadcasting and on the Internet ( telemedia ) (see § 13 JMStV). The KJM assesses whether offers violate human dignity or other legal interests protected by the criminal code or violate the protection of minors and can take action against them. The legal basis is the State Treaty on Youth Media Protection .
organization
The KJM was founded on April 1st, 2003. Composed of 12 members (six directors of the regional media authorities , four of the for protection of minors highest competent state authorities and two appointed by the authorities responsible for the protection of minors supreme federal authority experts).
Principle of self-regulation
The State Treaty on the Protection of Minors from the Media follows the principle of regulated self-regulation. The aim is to strengthen the personal responsibility of broadcasters and internet providers and to improve the possibilities of prior checking. Voluntary self-regulation institutions are granted a legally stipulated decision-making framework that the media supervisory authority may only review to a limited extent. The self-regulatory bodies must be recognized by the KJM. The KJM monitors the rulings and the discretion of recognized self-regulatory bodies.
tasks
The youth media protection tries to keep influences of the adult world, which do not yet correspond to the development level of children and adolescents, as low as possible and to support children and adolescents in their personal development. It is the task of youth media protection to assess media content based on its potential risk and to regulate its public distribution. The legal protection of minors in the media provides that children and adolescents use media in an age-appropriate manner or have no access in order to protect them from problematic, development-impairing media content.
Relationship to the federal and state governments
The Commission for the Protection of Young People in the Media is the central decision-making body of the state media authorities on issues relating to the protection of minors in transnational private broadcasting and in transnational telemedia. In order to create a network between the various supervisory institutions, especially in the telemedia sector, the JMStV sees close cooperation between the KJM, the control body of the federal states jugendschutz.net (cf. § 18 JMStV) and the federal inspection agency for media harmful to minors (§ 17 para. 1 JuSchG). In terms of organization, jugendschutz.net is linked to the KJM and supports them in researching the Internet. Before deciding on indexing requests for telemedia, the BPjM obtains the opinion of the KJM; The KJM can also submit indexing applications to the BPjM and block Internet content in Germany .
Decisions of the KJM organ (Section 14 (2) sentence 2 JMStV) are legally attributed to the competent state media authority, which is a legal entity as an institution under public law (Section 14 (1) sentence 2, Article 20 (1), 2 and 4 , Section 24 (4) sentence 6 JMStV). The decisions of the KJM are carried out by the executive body (director / president) of the locally responsible state media authority, which includes hearings and other details of the administrative procedure.
Legal status
In the legal literature, the opinion is occasionally expressed that the KJM is an unconstitutional mixed authority made up of representatives of the federal and state governments and should therefore be regarded as legal nullity . The KJM is a collegial body without its own legal personality. It is not an authority and cannot be sued by providers or institutions of voluntary self-regulation because of its decisions. She is also not able to be summoned in legal proceedings. Rather, the KJM is a legally dependent organ of the relevant state media authority (Section 14 (2) sentence 2 JMStV).
literature
- Jessica Ehrlichmann: The constitutionality of the commission for youth media protection (KJM) and its activity (law of the information society, volume 8). Berlin 2007.
- Roland Bornemann / Murad Erdemir: State Treaty on Youth Media Protection. Nomos comment. Baden-Baden 2017, ISBN 978-3-8329-6198-5