[10] Non-adversary proceedings in turn include matters related to property (Grundbuchssachen),[11] incorporation (Firmenbuchssachen),[12] guardianship (Obsorge),[13] inheritance (Verlassenschaftsverfahren),[14] child support (Unterhaltsverfahren),[15] preliminary lawsuits (Mahnverfahren),[16] adoption (Adoption),[17] involuntary hospitalization (Unterbringung),[18] declarations of death (Todeserklärung)[19] and various other things; they are primarily adjudicated by judicial magistrates (Rechtspfleger).

[21] A successful appeal-at-law not only overturns but utterly erases the ruling of the appellate court, sending the case down the ladder again.

[37] The Court does not have the authority to actually veto legislation, however, and neither does it have the soft power to make draft bills politically untenable.

Austria is a parliamentary democracy in which most bills originate not from individual lawmakers but from the Cabinet; the country has had strong consociationalist tendencies historically and remains highly consensus-oriented to this day.

[38] Formal expert opinions on draft bills offered by political lobbying groups, professional associations, churches, regional governments, and various arms of the federal bureaucracy are a routine part of the legislative process; neither the Cabinet nor the legislature are required to defer to any of them.

[47] The Court maintains a specialized personnel committee (Personalsenat) that provides the minister with a shortlist of three candidates in the event of a vacancy.

[48] In theory, the minister may appoint any Austrian legally qualified to sit on the bench (and not excluded by the constitution's rudimentary incompatibility provisions).

[50] As everywhere in the Austrian court system, panels are subject to a fixed and specific apportionment of responsibilities (feste Geschäftseinteilung).

[51] The fixed apportionment is meant to prevent the Cabinet from influencing outcomes by hand-picking a panel sympathetic to its perspective.

[55] If a panel of five (einfacher Senat) suspects that a case currently before it may raise a question of law of wider importance (Rechtsfrage von grundsätzlicher Bedeutung) and that existing Supreme Court case law in the matter is ambiguous or inconsistent, the panel has to add an additional six members, for a total of eleven.

A case that raises a question of law of wider importance also requires a panel of eleven (verstärkter Senat) if the verdict is going to overturn a large body of existing Supreme Court case law (ein Abgehen von der ständigen Rechtsprechung) or a verdict handed down by another panel of eleven.

[56] The Court only rarely meets in plenum; a plenary session is mainly required to authorize the yearly activity report.

[58] The Judicial Administration includes affairs related to the personnel, the courthouse, the physical inventory, the budget, collaboration programs with universities, foreign countries, the press, the internal rules as well as the presidium, the secretariat, the bureau of evidence and the library and recruiting commissions.

[63] Original jurisdiction over most civil and criminal matters resided with local princes (Landesfürsten) in some regions, with the estates of the realm (Landstände) in others, with petty landlords in parts of the countryside, and with proto-democratic municipal governments in certain cities.

The Supreme Judicial Office (Oberste Justizstelle) in Vienna, created by Maria Theresa in 1749, functioned both as a token court of last appeal and as a rudimentary ministry of justice.

[66] The Revolutions of 1848, whose goals included constitutional rule, equality before the law, and the abolition of outdated remnants of the feudal system, finally forced the Habsburgs to take drastic action.

[71] Subsequent legislation pursuant to the March Constitution created a system of general courts that also survived, with a few significant but narrow alterations, to this day.

[73] A statute enacted in August 1850 established the panel system and otherwise detailed Supreme Court organization and procedure.

The Court then also survived the gradual return to constitutional rule between 1860 and 1868, although it lost jurisdiction over the eastern half of the empire when the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen gained legal independence ensuing the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867.

[77] The collapse of the empire at the end of World War I and the Austrian rump state's subsequent transition from monarchy to democratic republic necessitated a number of changes to Austria's system of courts of public law.

The system of general courts, on the other hand, remained largely unaffected, except of course for its drastic decrease in geographic reach.

A pair of laws enacted by the emerging republic's provisional government in late 1918 and early 1919 confirmed the Supreme Court in its existence.