Supreme executive organ

The Constitutional Court itself, on the other hand, is not a supreme organ because its decisions, while definitive, are judicial and not administrative in nature.

A person or institution with ultimate responsibility for some class of administrative decision is a supreme executive organ.

[13] The Austrian constitution uses the term "supreme executive organ" multiple times but provides neither an intensional nor an extensional definition.

Article 19 of the Federal Constitutional Law contains what appears to be a taxative enumeration of supreme executive organs, but this list is universally dismissed as specious and useless.

The defining characteristics of supreme executive organs and the consequences of membership to the class have been established by case law and academic scholarship.

[22] They also have injunction authority (Weisungsgewalt), the power to issue orders (Weisungen) to their respective subordinate organs that require or prohibit specific substantive acts and decisions.

[24] Executive organs can only exercise powers explicitly vested in them by statute and generally have to abide by the law, primary and secondary, constitutional and other.

On the other hand, if removal is too cheap in terms of political capital or if the option is available to too many actors, the independence of the supreme executive organ becomes purely notional, the claim to ultimate responsibility a farce.

Being justices, presidents of courts receive lifetime appointments in order to guarantee judicial independence.

[36] Even justices, however, can be removed in case of material misconduct: Article 19 of the Federal Constitutional Law, the backbone of the constitution, empowers the National Council to enact incompatibility provisions that bar presidents, ministers, and members of provincial governments from holding positions in the private sector during their time in office.