Authentic interpretation
The authentic interpretation is a special form of the interpretation of legally relevant texts, in particular of laws , other legal provisions or contracts . Actually, the authentic interpretation in the strict sense is not an interpretation, but a binding stipulation of an interpretation as a declaration of intent by the legislature (or the contractual partner).
In Austria the Authentic Interpretation is codified in § 8 ABGB : “ Only the legislature has the power to declare a law in a generally binding manner. Such a declaration must be applied to all legal cases that have yet to be decided, insofar as the legislature does not add that no declaration should not be obtained when deciding on such legal cases which have as their subject matter the actions taken and the rights addressed before the declaration. “This provision was used, especially in the early phase of the application of the ABGB between 1812 and 1846, in order to finally and uniformly eliminate ambiguities for the entire legal area.
The German Federal Constitutional Court dealt with a case of authentic interpretation (in the sense of the interpretation of a law by the legislature itself) in its Senate decision on the retroactive amendment of the German Third-Party Pension Act (decision of the First Senate of July 21, 2010, 1 BvR 2530/05 et al., BVerfGE 126 , 369). The legislature had described the retroactive effect as merely declaratory , i.e. not constitutive . However, the Federal Constitutional Court found that this authentic interpretation with regard to the declaratory or constitutive character of Article 5 (3) RVNG was not binding on the judiciary.
