“All citizens are equal before the Law. Privileges based upon birth, gender, status, class, and confession are excluded. Nobody may be disadvantaged because of their disability.”

That is the first paragraph of Article 7 of Austria’s constitution in today’s version.

A constitution lays out the basic rules of a state: how it is set up and the way institutions, law-making and courts function.

Deciding on the formulation of the new state’s Constitution made for heated debates in Parliament. You can see a draft in the middle of the display case here on the wall.

The revisions in pencil testify to the complicated process of negotiation among the parties in Parliament. Although there were many points of great dispute, they came to a compromise in the end.

In the display on the right is a copy of a newspaper called the Wiener Zeitung from the 1st of October 1920, announcing that the Constitution had come into effect. In the left bottom corner of the document, you can see Article 7 on the principle of equality that was quoted here at the beginning of this station.

Jurist Hans Kelsen played an extremely influential role in creating the new Constitution. There is a large portrait of him right behind you. Kelsen is often referred to as the “architect of the Constitution” of Austria. He believed the Parliament should play a strong and central role.

For Kelsen, the Parliament should not just be a “voting machine”, but a forum for debating different standpoints—with the aim of finding a compromise, which all parties can agree upon.

A key element of Kelsen’s concept of democracy is the relationship between those in the minority and those in the majority. For Kelsen, democracy did not mean the majority rules, but that the standpoints of the minority, or of the opposition, are also considered in the decision-making processes.

Kelsen also was the one who came up with the idea of a constitutional court with independent judges who check if the laws proposed comply with the Constitution. Austria was the first country to introduce a constitutional court.

In 1929, the Constitution was modified to give the President a stronger position. Elected directly by the people, the President could now decide on issues that had formerly only been decided upon by the Parliament. This stood in contradiction to Kelsen’s vision.

This version of the Constitution remained in effect until the Austrian dictatorship was established in 1934; and was reinstated once more in 1945. It is still in effect today and is constantly being re-worked and updated—an expression of a lively and dynamic democracy.