On January 1st, 2015, the constitutional amendment introducing the new constitutional complaint against decisions by civil and criminal courts in Austria will come into force. This remedy addresses shortcomings in the current legal system regarding the protection of individuals against legal norms. Provided that certain conditions are met, parties of any civil or criminal proceeding can thus, as of next year, appeal directly to the Constitutional Court, which then examines the norms for their constitutionality and nullifies them, if they arent consistent with the constitution.However, since the first proposals were formulated, this constitutional amendment has had a history of more than 50 years of numerous, different draft laws and highly controversial debates. Particularly the Austrian Convention investigated in detail the possibilities of extending the rights of parties in judicial review proceedings. Furthermore, since the 24th legislative period not fewer than four different draft laws have been submitted to the National Assembly, prior to eventually adopting the constitutional amendment introducing the constitutional complaint in Austria in June 2013. This diploma thesis therefore provides a comprehensive overview of the constitutional amendments history, presents and compares its different draft laws as well as outlines benefits and potential problems related to the new constitutional complaint. Due to the fact that a few weeks ago a new ministerial draft law has been submitted, providing the statutory regulations for implementing the constitutional complaint, the last part of this diploma thesis will also go into detail on these regulations and expose some potential procedural problems in this regard. |