European Databases | VwGH

The Supreme Administrative Court of Austria is one of the three highest courts in the country next to the Supreme Court of Justice and the Constitutional Court.

• The Supreme Administrative Court was established by law in 1876. The idea was to put the country’s administration apparatus under judicial supervision to adhere to the rule of law.
• The transfer from monarchy to democracy and the period of the NS-regime brought turbulent times also to the Supreme Administrative Court. However, after the second World War in 1945 the Court resumed work on grounds of the newly passed “Verwaltungsgerichtshofgesetz” (VwGG) which after some amendments is still in force today.
• The Court is responsible for matters of fiscal and asylum law, as well as cases concerning planning permits and industrial operating licences, just to name a few.


• Under the Supreme Administrative Court stand 9 regional administrative courts, the Federal Fiscal Court and the Federal Administrative Court. Anyone can request a review of their rulings if these involve a legal question of fundamental importance (e.g. when the ruling does not follow past decisions). The Supreme Administrative Court has the power to annul the decisions under review and send them back to the responsible lower court.
• The Supreme Administrative Court may also be addressed when a lower administrative court fails to give a timely decision, when a dispute regarding jurisdiction occurs and when an ordinary (civil/criminal) court requests information on the legality of decisions issued by administrative authorities or lower administrative courts.

• All decisions of the Supreme Administrative Court since 1990 are available in the database “RIS” (Rechtsinformationssystem).
• Older decisions, which were not published can be requested at the court’s Servicecenter against reimbursement of the copying costs.
• Decisions which are of great importance to the public are also uploaded on the website of the Supreme Administrative Court in addition to the publication in the RIS-database.

• The RIS-database provides the decisions in Word-, PDF- and html-format.
• Decisions which are also published on the court’s website are enhanced with an easy-to-read summary and a link to the corresponding RIS-page.
• All documents are only available in the language of the proceeding, which is German.