page_title: Judicial review in Austria
section_title: Ways of challenging legislation
hierarchical_section_title: Judicial review in Austria / Review of legislation / Ways of challenging legislation
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Verfassungsgerichtshof und BA-CA Kunstforum, ehem. Österr. Creditanstalt für Handel und Gewerbe &#160; This media shows the protected monument with the number 90738 in Austria. (Commons, de, Wikidata) English: Austrian Constitutional Court &#160; This media shows the protected monument with the number 20941 in Austria. (Commons, de, Wikidata) This is a photo of public art indexed in a public art catalogue of Vienna (Austria) under the number: 48145 (commons, de) .
context_page_description: The European and Austrian constitutions endow the Austrian court system with broad powers of judicial review.
  All Austrian courts are charged with verifying that the statutes and ordinances they are about to apply conform to European Union law, and to refuse to apply them if not. A specialized Constitutional Court checks statutes for compliance with the Austrian constitution and executive ordinances for compliance with Austrian law in general.
  A system of administrative courts reviews individual-scope actions of the executive branch.
  Influenced by Hans Kelsen and a general local tradition of legal positivism, the statutory construction of the Austrian Constitutional Court relied mostly on grammatical interpretation from its beginnings in 1920 to the mid-1980s. In the decades since then, the court has increasingly made use of teleological reasoning. Much of the court's workload is due to – and many of its decisions are the product of – unique distinctivenesses of the legal and political framework it is operating in.
context_section_description: The general courts – civil and criminal chambers, essentially – are encouraged (and in fact required) to make sure that statutes they are about to apply have been enacted and promulgated in accordance with the constitution, and that ordinances they are about to apply have been issued in accordance with the constitution and with pertinent other legislation, primary or secondary. Statutes and ordinances that fail this test cannot be applied.
  General courts are also authorized to consider whether a statute or ordinance at issue might be unconstitutional or illegal on other grounds. They can neither strike nor refuse to apply legislation they deem suspicious, however. Instead, they are encouraged (and required) to put the matter before the Constitutional Court. If a party to the trial believes that the court has applied a statute or an ordinance that is unconstitutional or illegal, that party can file a special appeal at law (Parteiantrag auf Normenkontrolle) against the verdict with the Constitutional Court.
  In addition, the Constitutional Court can also be asked to intervene by legislative or administrative authorities:
  Review of a provincial ordinance can be requested by the national cabinet; review of a national ordinance by a provincial cabinet.
  Review of a provincial statute can be requested by the national cabinet; review of a national statute by a provincial cabinet, through a petition supported by one third of the members of the National Council, or through a petition supported by one third of the members of the Federal Council.
  Finally, a private person, natural or other, can file a complaint (Individualantrag) against a statute or an ordinance with the Constitutional Court. The complaint has to argue that the complainant is being violated in their rights by the piece of legislation at issue, actually and not just potentially. The complaint also has to argue that there is no plausible way for the complainant to get the problem resolved through any other means available to them.
caption: Constitutional Court
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