Foreign Precedents in Austrian Constitutional Litigation
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Anna Gamper
Professor of Public Law at the Department of Public Law, State and Administrative Theory at the University of Innsbruck, Austria
Abstract
This paper analyzes the Austrian Constitutional Court’s use of foreign precedents in the Court’s own case law. As the survey shows, the Austrian Constitutional Court is still reluctant to use foreign precedents, even though there has been a slight increase of cases dealing with foreign case law over the last decade. Among the various reasons for this attitude, the Court’s methodology deriving from legal positivism as well as the doctrine of self-containedness of Austrian constitutional law have been most important. Quite conversely, the same Court strongly engages in the ‘dialogue’ with European courts and has for a long time used to cite case law of both the ECtHR and the ECJ. Still, and with good reasons, the Court is far from becoming a radically cosmopolitan court.
About the author
Professor of Public Law at the Department of Public Law, State and Administrative Theory at the University of Innsbruck, Austria
© 2017 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Table of Contents
- Articles
- On Resilience of Constitutions. What Makes Constitutions Resistant to External Shocks?
- Foreign Precedents in Austrian Constitutional Litigation
- The Place of the Niqab in the Courtroom
- Notes & Essays
- The Most Significant Issues of Power Theory in Hungary from 2010 to 2014
- Czech Presidential Elections 2013
- Developments Austria
- Gender-specific Scoring of Admission Tests for medical Studies is consistent with the Principle of Equality
- Preferential Treatment of female Gynaecologists justified by legitimate Demand
- Austrian Court of Audit is denied Access to Federal Ministry’s e-mail Correspondence
- Developments CEE
- Croatian Constitutional Court: The Referendum on the Cyrillic Script
- Hungarian Constitutional Court: The Limits of Criticism of Public Figures
- Book Reviews
- Maurice Adams, Federico Fabbrini and Pierre Larouche (eds), The Constitutionalization of European Budgetary Constraints, Hart Publishing, 2014, ISBN 978-1-84946-580-9, 428 pp.
Articles in the same Issue
- Table of Contents
- Articles
- On Resilience of Constitutions. What Makes Constitutions Resistant to External Shocks?
- Foreign Precedents in Austrian Constitutional Litigation
- The Place of the Niqab in the Courtroom
- Notes & Essays
- The Most Significant Issues of Power Theory in Hungary from 2010 to 2014
- Czech Presidential Elections 2013
- Developments Austria
- Gender-specific Scoring of Admission Tests for medical Studies is consistent with the Principle of Equality
- Preferential Treatment of female Gynaecologists justified by legitimate Demand
- Austrian Court of Audit is denied Access to Federal Ministry’s e-mail Correspondence
- Developments CEE
- Croatian Constitutional Court: The Referendum on the Cyrillic Script
- Hungarian Constitutional Court: The Limits of Criticism of Public Figures
- Book Reviews
- Maurice Adams, Federico Fabbrini and Pierre Larouche (eds), The Constitutionalization of European Budgetary Constraints, Hart Publishing, 2014, ISBN 978-1-84946-580-9, 428 pp.
