It underwent significant revisions in 1925 and 1929, the latter reform changing the system of government from purely parliamentary to semi-presidential.

The Law was superseded by the authoritarian Ständestaat constitution in 1934, which itself became void with the 1938 incorporation of Austria into Nazi Germany.

Austria has consistently been using party-list proportional representation, but nothing in the Federal Constitutional Law prevents the legislature from moving, for example, to single-member legislative districts with first-past-the-post voting.

The National Council can submit parliamentary inquiries that cabinet members are required to answer; its standing committees can summon cabinet members or bureaucrats for questioning and demand to inspect executive branch paperwork (Art.

The Constitutional Court reviews statutes and secondary legislation, striking laws and regulations it deems unconstitutional (Art.

Most legislation of everyday relevance, from family law to trade regulation and from education to the criminal code, is in the "federal" purview (Art.

The provinces have some limited ability to collect their own taxes and could in theory issue their own bonds, but these powers are severely circumscribed and do not result in meaningful fiscal autonomy.

It does not include a comprehensive bill of rights, however, nor does it demand any kind of equality before the law extending to visitors and residents who are not citizens.

The Republic of Austria originally continued to rely on the 1867 Imperial Basic Law on the General Rights of Nationals as its main charter of civil liberties and procedural guarantees, the framers of the new constitution being unable to agree on anything to replace it.

It also had to guarantee modern forms of equality, including full civil rights for its Croat and Slovenian minorities, which had historically been discriminated against.

Another office that has a chapter to itself is the Ombudsman Board, a powerless bureau of public advocates that mainly serves as a sinecure for aging party loyalists.

The monarchy collapsed in October 1918 as a result of long-standing disaffection between the ethnicities that made up the multi-national empire, exacerbated by the outcome of World War I.

[4] The act did not include any catalogue of basic rights, although it was followed on the same day by a resolution abolishing censorship and establishing freedom of the press.

[5] It also did not undertake to create any administrative subdivisions, define any permanent branches of government, or even stipulate the electoral rules pursuant to which it was to be replaced.

The 1925 version stipulates that legislative authority is concentrated with the "federal" parliament but that "state" governments have significant roles to play in the administration of the country.

The drafters of the original Act chose this system of government with the stated intent of preventing the President from becoming an "ersatz emperor."

[9] Pressured by authoritarian movements demanding a move to a presidential system, Austria greatly enhanced both the formal powers and the prestige of the office in a reform enacted in 1929 and in force starting in 1930.

While the National Council would be able to force the President to dismiss the cabinet, this ability would be a reserve power, to be used only in emergencies.

[10] By 1933, the Christian Social Party had become an authoritarian movement bent on disestablishing multi-party democracy.

On 4 March 1933, a contested National Council vote precipitated a series of quarrels that caused all three presidents of the chamber to resign their offices, one by one.

The code of parliamentary procedure made no provision for a National Council with no presidents; the session disbanded without having been properly closed and with no clear way forward.

Seeing his chance, Christian Social Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss declared that the National Council had rendered itself inoperative and that the cabinet would assume its responsibilities.

His self-coup had the color of law due to a 1917 act granting certain legislative powers to the then-Imperial cabinet.

Originally meant as a temporary measure to help the nation deal with wartime economic trouble, the act was never formally repealed.

The cabinet spent the next months abolishing freedom of the press, bringing back Catholicism as the state religion and enacting other repressive measures.

The constitution was affirmed in a specially convened assembly of the Christian Social members of the National Council on April 30 and went into force on May 1.

"[13] On the same day, the parties formed a Provisional Government (Provisorische Staatsregierung), a committee that would act as both cabinet and legislature until constitutional structures would haven been reestablished and elections could be held.

It also "temporarily" readopted a number of province border changes made by Nazi Germany and ostensibly nullified by the Government just minutes earlier.

Most notably, the Provisional Constitution confirmed that the provinces were "states" but denied them the authority to form their own provincial legislatures.

Up until June 1946, bills passed by the National Council still needed the unanimous assent of the occupation administration to become law.