Constitutional complaint filing date: receipt by court versus postal dispatch when misaddressed

The Constitutional Court held that the complainant’s constitutional complaint was filed only upon its receipt by the Court, not on the date of postal dispatch, thereby defeating the argument of timeliness based on the mailing date. The dispute concerned the procedural deadline for filing a constitutional complaint under § 82(1) of the Austrian Constitutional Court Act, specifically whether a complaint addressed to an unauthorised body and subsequently forwarded to the Court is deemed filed on the day of posting or on the day of actual receipt. Relying on prior jurisprudence, the Court established that the date of posting is determinative only where the complaint is properly addressed directly to the Constitutional Court; in cases of misaddressing and subsequent transfer by an unauthorised intermediary, the effective filing date is the date of the Court’s actual receipt of the document.