WKStA, surveillance ...

Justice: 5 major construction sites await the new government

Justitia and her Palace of Justice is and remains an essential part of the political discourse and tug-of-war.

(Bild: APA/Hans Klaus Techt)

The justice system has been the subject of fierce controversy in recent years. Reforms have been demanded and not all of them have yet been implemented. The issue is currently not playing a major role in coalition negotiations. Yet there is a great need for action.

Justice has been hotly contested since Ibiza. After the elections, things went quiet around the venerable figure. Justice plays no role in the current public discourse on possible coalitions. But there is a lot to work on.

• Cell phone security: chats shook the republic and led to resignations and political crises. The current government can no longer get a majority together for a new regulation, which according to the Supreme Court must be in place by the end of the year. The FPÖ took advantage of this and requested last week that data carriers may only be confiscated in future if they carry a penalty of more than one year's imprisonment. Judges and public prosecutors were up in arms against this.

• Surveillance of messenger services: Common practice in most countries - even in cautious Germany with its strict constitutional court. After the terrorist attack at the Taylor Swift concert in Vienna was prevented (by a US warning), the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) declared the surveillance of suspects using Signal and Co to be a coalition condition. The Greens were against it. Could be an exciting point of negotiation. 

•  The controversial WKStA: Recently, it has mainly targeted people close to the ÖVP. Dozens of proceedings are ongoing, there have been trials, guilty verdicts as well as dismissals and acquittals. Recently, the anti-corruption authority has lost important investigators. Now one of them has to stay. Senior public prosecutor Bernhard Weratschnig wanted to become a judge in his home town of Klagenfurt. A woman was chosen over him. It will be interesting to see how a new government deals with the relatively self-sufficient WKStA, which is demanding more resources.
• Federal Public Prosecutor: Austria is one of the few countries in which the Ministry of Justice is at the top of the list of prosecutors. The ÖVP and the Greens agree that they want to change this. They could not agree on how. And who should this "independent" person or body be? Who decides? Anyone who knows Austria knows - this is going to be a tough one.
• Post haggling and appointments of judges: Appointments to supreme courts such as the Federal Administrative Court took months. Green and Turquoise could not reach an agreement. The Association of Judges made serious accusations and emphasized that independent courts in particular must be appointed free of party interests. In the end, a political agreement was reached. Blessed by the Federal President. What everyone overlooked or ignored. According to a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights on March 12, 2019 (Bsw 26374/18), such "side letter appointments" to courts are unlawful. 

What do the parties think? 
At the moment, they do not want to send anything to potential government partners via the media. However, the NEOS urgently want reforms in the fight against corruption, says Klubvize Nikolaus Scherak. More resources are needed, as well as an independent federal public prosecutor's office at the end of the chain of command.

The Greens take a similar view and point out that their Justice Minister Alma Zadic has prevented the "silent death" of the judiciary.