Self-Citations and Citations to European Constitutional Courts by the Austrian Constitutional Court

Abstract

The Austrian Constitutional Court (VfGH) cites – frequently itself, but also other (constitutional) courts. This article describes comprehensively the citation behavior of the VfGH based on both citations of its own case law and citations of foreign case law, meaning citations to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and other national constitutional courts of Member States of the European Union. This allows an innovative identification of so-called leading cases. With regard to self-citations, we identify key decisions that have shaped the jurisprudence of the VfGH. The identification of the 20 most frequently cited decisions of the ECtHR and the ECJ also provides an insight into the evolution of Austria’s legal integration in Europe using the example of the case law of the VfGH. The data shows that, apart from the ECtHR and the CJEU, only the German Federal Constitutional Court plays a – albeit small – role in the case law of the VfGH. The VfGH makes almost no reference to other European constitutional courts.