Obliged March constitution

Basic data
Title:	Imperial constitution for the Austrian Empire
Long title:	Imperial patent dated March 4, 1849, containing the imperial constitution for the Austrian Empire
Abbreviation:	Obliged March constitution
Type:	Imperial patent
Scope:	Empire of Austria
Legal matter:	Constitutional law
Reference:	RGBl. No. 150/1849 (= pp. 151–165)
Date of law:	March 4, 1849
Expiration date:	Patent dated December 31, 1851 (New Year's Eve patent)
	Please note the note on the applicable legal version !

The constitution of the Austrian Empire ¹ , which was enacted by the 18-year-old Emperor Franz Joseph I on March 4, 1849 after the revolution of 1848/49 in the Austrian Empire, without the involvement of a parliament from Olomouc , is called the October Constitution .

In legal comments , “ oktroyierte ” (from French octroyer ), that is, imposed or imposed regulations or decisions, are referred to as Oktroy . The imperial patent was issued in Olomouc because the court had moved to Moravia in 1848 in order to avoid the dangers of the revolution in Vienna (the Reichstag also met in nearby Kremsier ).

history

There were two preliminary drafts for this constitution: the Pillersdorf constitution , which came into force on April 25, 1848 for all Austrian territories except the Kingdom of Hungary and was downgraded to a commission on May 16, 1848, and the Kremsier draft 1848/1849, a - not quite finished - draft for a constitutional charter by the Reichstag of Kremsier .

In a longer introduction (the manifesto ) Franz Joseph I explained why he wrote this constitution (drawn up by Prime Minister Felix zu Schwarzenberg with the help of Karl Friedrich von Kübeck and Franz Graf Stadion ) without the involvement of the one appointed under his predecessor. The Kremsier Reichstag, which had been dissolved in March 1849, issued: The revolting Hungary, which had had its own constitution since April 1848 and had been in the Hungarian War of Independence since October 3, 1848 , was not represented. He is concerned with a constitution for the whole Reich, which the Reichstag cannot bring about. Such a “constitution, which is supposed to encompass not only the countries represented in Kremsier, but the whole empire as a whole, is what the peoples of Austria expect from us with just impatience.” Franz Joseph legitimizes the state constitution here through an alleged popular will . He also stressed that it was his responsibility and that the constitution was “bestowed by the emperor's own power”.

content

The constitution provided for a Reichstag as a two-chamber parliament with an upper house (members sent by the state parliaments) and a lower house (members elected by all men with a certain minimum tax rate) as well as an advisory Reichsrat and defined fundamental rights and freedoms of the unified Austrian citizens. Anton Heinrich Springer , who worked at the University of Prague , stated as early as 1849: "Impossible constitution."

Attached to the actual constitution itself were a patent on civil rights , the basic rights patent , and the patent for the abolition of basic subservience ( peasant exemption / basic discharge ).

Effects and Validity

The March Constitution was part of Prime Minister Felix zu Schwarzenberg's domestic and foreign policy concept. He strove for a unified Austrian state, which in its entirety should belong to a German confederation ( Greater Austria Plan). During the drafting of an Austrian constitution in 1848/49, Austria sent elected representatives to the Frankfurt National Assembly to decide on a reform of the German Confederation. In the National Assembly, however, a Greater Austrian solution never had a majority - a Greater German or a Little German solution was up for discussion . With the proclamation of the imposed March constitution, this discussion was largely resolved - Austria's non-waiting for an all-German constitution and the emphasis on the inseparability of the Austrian states led to the small German Paulskirche constitution . Even if this was ultimately no longer in force, it influenced all further attempts at German unification by Prussia and can be seen as the first decisive, if unintended, separation of Austria from the other German states.

On August 20, 1851, the emperor sent an official letter to Prime Minister Fürst Schwarzenberg, in which he was instructed to "consider the existence and the possibility of implementing the constitution of March 4, 1849 in mature and thorough consideration" and to do so for the time being the President of the (advisory) Reichsrat, Karl Friedrich von Kübeck , to prepare an opinion on how these considerations should be addressed. The emperor and those around him were evidently aware that constitutional law and constitutional reality diverged greatly.

On August 26, 1851, Franz Joseph I (according to an unrecognized source) allegedly sent a letter to his mother, Archduchess Sophie , according to which his assignment to Schwarzenberg was only for the sake of form: “A big step has been taken. We have thrown the constitutional overboard, and Austria has only one master. But now we still have to work hard. "

The enforced constitution was formally suspended by Franz Joseph I with the New Year's Eve patent of December 31, 1851. Even before that, the political stance of the emperor and his advisors, later referred to as neo-absolutism, had meant that the imperial dictatorship prevented the free formation of opinions and the participation of elected members in state affairs.

After the lost wars of 1859 and 1866, Imperial Austria only came to a constitution that was actually valid for a longer period of time with the constitutional reform of Austria-Hungary in 1867, which was valid until October 1918. Walter Pollak sums it up in 1974: “The imposed constitution was promulgated, but never filled with life. The neo-absolutism began its way "but not, it was a complete return to the situation before the March Revolution of 1848: With the repeal were. Basic civil rights explicitly maintained:" ... which the constitutional document of 4 March 1849 no. 150 of the RGB, declared beyond the force of law, but expressly confirms the equality of all citizens of the state before the law, as well as the inadmissibility and the discontinuation of every peasant subservience or bondage association and the associated services "(New Year's Patent, long title). The liberation of the peasants, the uniform customs system, the uniform citizenship, the separation of justice and administration, jury courts and municipal autonomy have been preserved as legacies of the revolution. The new constitution of the Austrian part of the empire in 1867, the December constitution , took up central concepts of the March constitution. But the Kremsier constitution also had a major influence on the later constitutions, including the Federal Constitutional Act 1920.