The Constitution of Austria (Österreichische Bundesverfassung) is the body of all constitutional law of the Republic of Austria on the federal level. It is split up over many different acts. Its centerpiece is the Bundes-Verfassungsgesetz (B-VG), which includes the most important federal constitutional provisions.
Apart from the B-VG, there are a large number of other constitutional acts (called Bundesverfassungsgesetze, singular Bundesverfassungsgesetz, abbrev. BVG, i.e. without the dash) and individual provisions in statutes and treaties which are designated as constitutional ("Verfassungsbestimmung"). For example, the B-VG does not include a bill of rights, but provisions on civil liberties are split up over different constitutional legislative acts.
Over time, both the B-VG and the numerous pieces of constitutional law supplementing it have undergone literally hundreds of minor and major amendments and revisions.
Read more about Constitution Of Austria: History, Structure, Federal Legislature, Federal Executive, Judicial and Administrative Review, Judiciary, Civil and Human Rights, Further Checks and Balances, Criticism and Reform Proposals
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“In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections; keeping inseparable and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities, our state, our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“I never did ask more, nor ever was willing to accept less, than for all the States, and the people thereof, to take and hold their places, and their rights, in the Union, under the Constitution of the United States. For this alone have I felt authorized to struggle; and I seek neither more nor less now.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“All the terrors of the French Republic, which held Austria in awe, were unable to command her diplomacy. But Napoleon sent to Vienna M. de Narbonne, one of the old noblesse, with the morals, manners, and name of that interest, saying, that it was indispensable to send to the old aristocracy of Europe men of the same connection, which, in fact, constitutes a sort of free- masonry. M. de Narbonne, in less than a fortnight, penetrated all the secrets of the imperial cabinet.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)