Constitutional Court clarifies:

Complaints about ORF fee only on the long road

Anyone wishing to defend themselves against the ORF contribution must go through the usual instances - the more direct route via the Constitutional Court is not possible.

(Bild: APA/GEORG HOCHMUTH)

More than 300 people had appealed to the Constitutional Court (VfGH) because they consider the ORF fee for all households, which has been in force since the beginning of the year, to be unlawful. However, the Supreme Court has now postponed the complaint, stating that a review in its current form is "inadmissible". 

With the exception of those households that were previously exempt from the GIS fee, a fee of EUR 15.30 per household has been payable since January 1. Since then, it does not matter whether there is a television or radio in the home. For most people who previously paid the device-linked GIS fee, it became cheaper. However, hundreds of thousands of households had to pay for the first time.

However, it is now almost impossible to avoid paying the ORF fee, which many Austrians find annoying. 331 of them therefore submitted a so-called individual application for a review of the law to the Constitutional Court, as they consider the law implemented by the government to be unconstitutional.

The longer route to appeal is "reasonable"
 Whether this is actually the case will probably not be answered for some time yet. On Thursday, the Supreme Court rejected the order as "inadmissible". In its communication, the Constitutional Court stated that another legal route was reasonable. This means that the applicants, the majority of whom do not own a television set, can request a notice from ORF-Beitrags-Service GmbH (OBS; formerly GIS) regarding the determination of their ORF contribution without having to provoke criminal proceedings.

According to the Constitutional Court, this decision can subsequently be appealed to the Federal Administrative Court (BVwG). The decision of the BVwG can in turn be appealed to the Constitutional Court.

ORF law really contrary to equality?
In their individual application, the applicants had argued that the law regulating the ORF contribution was contrary to equality, as it does not differentiate whether the individual persons liable to pay the contribution also use the ORF service. It violates the right to the integrity of property, as it does not sufficiently differentiate between participation and non-participation in ORF's offerings.

It was also argued that the legal process via the BVwG was not reasonable due to the time and costs involved. The Constitutional Court did not share this view. The Constitutional Court did not comment on the content of the ORF report.