Vienna appoints third-ranked candidate as president of top court

The Austrian government has appointed the president of the country’s federal administrative court, a candidate ranked third by an expert selection committee, following 400 days of political back-and-forth.

After leaving the position vacant for more than 400 days, the Austrian government said on Saturday that it wanted to appoint Christian Filzwieser as the court’s president.

Filzwieser considered an able adjudicator of the law, was ranked third by an expert selection committee, while Sabine Matejka, who was ranked first in the process, said she may lodge a complaint if passed over.

Her appointment was reportedly blocked by the centre-right ÖVP, whilst the jointly governing Greens ultimately acceded – after 420 days.

This adds to the troubles of the administrative court, whose 200 employed judges make it the country’s biggest. Established in 2014, the body handling issues like asylum cases is already in the crosshairs of Brussels.

In the EU’s 2023 rule of law report, several issues were pointed out: judges of the court do not require previous experience as a judge, whether the appointment process of the president is sufficiently “transparent and traceable,” and whether “there is a need for improvement in terms of the duration and backlog of proceedings.”

Civil society centred around Amnesty International cheered the move but called it overdue. “The eternal inactivity of the government has given the impression that the interim supervision and the delayed replacement may have been motivated by party politics,” said Shoura Hashemi, the group’s CEO for Austria.

Now, all that remains is the approval of the President, Alexander Van der Bellen.

(Nikolaus J. Kurmayer | Euractiv.de)