Abstract

Constitutional review was the most original idea stemming from the Austrian Federal Constitution of 1920. It is argued that the politician Karl Renner gave birth to the idea of a constitutional court. Hans Kelsen played the predominant role in the drafting of constitutional provisions. The new Constitutional Court provided for a centralized system of review, with an eye to a number of politically important issues. Owing to the pressure that stemmed from various discussions between and among the politicians of the national state and the Länder, Kelsen was obliged to depart from the German model of the federal state and to develop in its place a new theory.