Legal Fundaments: Austria

 

LAW ON THE LANDESVOLKSANWALT

§ 1
General

(1) The Landtag will appoint a Landesvolksanwalt to advise its citizens and to investigate their complaints. The Landesvolksanwalt shall be independent in the exercise of his office.

§ 2
Tasks of the Landesvolksanwalt

  1. The Landesvolksanwalt shall advise and inform each and every inquirer on matters relating to the Land administration. He can likewise se extend advice to the community at large on matters relating to the Land administration.
  2. The Landesvolksanwalt shall investigate complaints about alleged maladministration by the Land if the complainant is affected by the alleged maladministration and in so far as he does not or no longer has recourse to legal remedy.
  3. The Landesvolksanwalt may ex officio investigate suspicions on his part of maladministration by the Land.
  4. The Landesvolksanwalt shall receive proposals relating to the Land's legislation and administration.
  5. Within the meaning of this provision the Land's administration includes
  1. all administrative matters within the Land's autonomous sphere of competence inclusive of the Land's activities as holder of civil rights exercised by Land authorities or other legal persons on the Land's behalf,
  2. matters relating to Gemeinden's own sphere of competence in so far as this comprises matters pertaining to the Land's sphere of execution and Gemeinden's activities as holders of civil rights.

§ 3
Procedure

  1. Procedure before the Landesvolksanwalt shall be as simple as possible for the individuals seeking advice and for complainants.
  2. On the grounds of a procedure to investigate maladministration the Landesvolksanwalt can make recommendations to the highest authority entitled to issue instructions within the branch of the Land's administration investigated as to how the established maladministration can as far as possible be now and in future obviated. This authority must meet the recommendations of the Landesvolksanwalt as quickly as possible, at the most however within two months, and inform the Landesvolksanwalt accordingly or state in writing why they have not, or not within this deadline, been met. The Land Government shall be notified of recommendations made to Gemeinde authorities.
  3. In the procedure for the investigation of maladministration initiated on account of complaints the Landesvolksanwalt shall, in so far as preponderant objections of public or private interest do not stand in the way, inform the complainants of the investigatory procedure's result and the measures taken to meet the particular case.
  4. The Landesvolksanwalt shall refer complaints whose investigation is not within his competence to the competent analogous Federal or other Land agency.
  5. The Landesvolksanwalt shall refer to the Landtag the proposals relating to Land legislation put to him. Proposals relating to the administration in cases falling under § 2 para. 5 (a) shall be transmitted to the Land Government, in cases falling under § 2 para. 5 (b) to the Gemeinde head concerned.
  6. Arts. 7, 10, 13, 14, 16, 18 paras. 1 and 4, 21, 22, 45 paras. 1 and 2, as well as Arts. 46 to 55 of the General Administrative Procedure Law shall be analogously applied in the procedure before the Landesvolksanwalt.

§ 4
Office Days

The Landesvolksanwalt is bound in case of need to hold office days also outside his official place of business. In this connection he shall as far as possible have regard for an impartial treatment for all regions of the Land.

§ 5
Imposts and Fees Immunity

Official acts by the Landesvolksanwalt are free of Land administrative imposts. Applications to the Landesvolksanwalt and all other documents issued for use in proceedings before the Landesvolksanwalt are freed from stamp duties.

§ 6
Reports by the Landesvolksanwalt

  1. The Landesvolksanwalt shall render the Landtag annually a report on his activities. The annual report shall be transmitted to the Land Government simultaneously with its presentation to the Landtag.
  2. The Landesvolksanwalt shall at four-monthly intervals report in writing or orally to the Volksanwalt Committee of the Landtag on the complaints submitted to him and on the results of the investigatory procedure implemented by him.
  3. The Landesvolksanwalt is entitled to, and on demand must, attend in an advisory capacity sessions of the Landtag and of the Volksanwalt Committee when Landesvolksanwalt reports are under discussion. He shall on request furnish the Landtag and the Volksanwalt Committee with all the information requisite to dealing with his reports.
  4. Whoever publishes the annual report of the Landesvolksanwalt or parts thereof prior to the report having undergone a reading by the Landtag commits an offence. And this notwithstanding that he has acted in another Federal Land or abroad. He shall be sentenced by the Bezirkshauptmannschaft (District Commissioner's Office) to a fine of up to 30,000 schillings.

§ 6a
Public Announcement,
Interview with Candidates

The election of the Landesvolksanwalt shall be preceded by a public announcement in the Land Vorarlberg Law Gazette and in the dailies whose place of publication is situated in Vorarlberg. An interview with the candidates proposed for election to the office of Landesvolksanwalt shall moreover be held before the election in the Volksanwalt Committee. (Amendment to the Law on the Landesvolksanwalt, published in the Land Vorarlberg Law Gazette on 1O March 1987)

§ 7
Office of the Landesvolksanwalt

  1. The Landesvolksanwalt shall establish an office at his official place of business. He shall appoint the staff necessary for the fulfilment or his duties and shall see to the appropriate equipment of the office.
  2. The Landesvolksanwalt has authority to make rules for, and to issue instructions to the office staff.
  3. The office staff shall perform the preliminary tasks and other forms of assistance allotted to them by the Landesvolksanwalt. The performance in his name of official acts of minor importance can be entrusted by the Landesvolksanwalt to staff members. Such committal must be put in writing. The head of the office shall in case of bias deputize for the Landesvolksanwalt.

§ 8
Budget Matters

  1. The expenditure on staff and equipment incurred by the work of the Landesvolksanwalt shall be borne by the Land.
  2. The Landesvolksanwalt shall draw up annually a budget estimate confined to his sphere of activity and shall transmit this to the Land Government for it to be taken into account in the preparation of the Land budget estimate. Similarly the Landesvolksanwalt shall submit to the Land Government for inclusion in its final budget account a statement on the actual expenditure.
  3. The Landesvolksanwalt is empowered to dispose over the incomings and outgoings earmarked for his sphere of activity by the Land budget estimate. Excepted therefrom are the matters prescribed in § 9.

§ 9
Emoluments

  1. The monthly remuneration of the Landesvolksanwalt shall amount to ATS 119,300.
  2. The provisions stipulated in the remuneration law 1998 to the members of the state Government shall be applicable to the Landesvolksanwalt. Insofar as section 5 of the remuneration law 1998 refers to the state remuneration law, § 9 of the law on the state ombudsman, version state law gazette No. 29/1985, shall be applicable in this connection. (§ 9 supersedes amendment state law gazette No 7/1998).