Constitutional review of federal legislation: assessment of compliance with constitutional guarantees and principles of legal certainty

The Austrian Constitutional Court declared the challenged federal law unconstitutional and void, thereby granting the constitutional complaint and ruling in favor of the complainant against the legislative authority. The dispute concerned the abstract review of a statute’s compliance with fundamental rights and the principle of legal certainty, where the complainant argued that the specific provisions violated constitutional guarantees or failed to meet the required standards of clarity and non-retroactivity. The decisive legal basis for the decision was the competence of the Constitutional Court under Article 140 of the Austrian Constitution to review the constitutionality of federal laws, leading to the finding that the impugned norm did not withstand constitutional scrutiny and was removed from the legal order.