Now it is fixed: Michael Mayrhofer becomes a constitutional judge. In today’s meeting of the Council of Ministers, the turquoise-green federal government decides to nominate the Upper Austrian as a member of the Constitutional Court. The OÖNachrichten reported about it on Saturday. The official appointment by Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen is then only a matter of form. There was no official confirmation from VP or the Greens this morning. Mayrhofer will succeed Wolfgang Brandstetter, who resigned in June in the course of the chat affair.
Mayrhofer is Dean of the Faculty of Law at the Linz Kepler University (JKU) and has been a substitute member of the VfGH since May. Already in the spring Mayrhofer, whose professional and personal suitability for the judge’s position is not doubted by anyone, was the ÖVP’s preferred candidate under Chancellor Sebastian Kurz for the VfGH, and the Greens and Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler are also pulling along. Mayrhofer is also a close confidante and advisor to Upper Austria’s Governor Thomas Stelzer (VP).
The other applicants are left behind – for example the Upper Austrian and JKU professor Barbara Leitl-Staudinger, who has been a substitute member of the VfGH since 2011 and has previously represented Brandstetter.
Mayrhofer has been with the JKU since 1999, has been a university professor for public law since 2016, and has been dean since 2019. Among other things, he heads the Linz Institute of Technology (LIT) Law Lab, which he helped set up, is a member of the bioethics commission in the Chancellery and advises the Ministry of Health on legal issues relating to corona.
