Habsburg Law

The Habsburg Law (in full, the Law concerning the Expulsion and the Takeover of the Assets of the House Habsburg-Lorraine) was a law originally passed by the Constituting National Assembly (Konstituierende Nationalversammlung) of German Austria, one of the successor states of dismantled Austria-Hungary, on April 3, 1919, which legally dethroned the House of Habsburg-Lorraine as rulers of the country which had declared itself a republic on November 12, 1918, and confiscated their property. The Habsburg Law was repealed in 1935 and the Habsburg family was given back its property. However, in 1938, following the Anschluss, the Nazis reintroduced the Habsburg Law and again confiscated the Habsburg family's property and banned the family from the country.

The law has been found to violate human rights, and for this reason, Austria was forced to repeal large parts of it, notably the ban on members of the Habsburg family entering Austria, before being admitted into the European Union in the 1990s. After a report by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) criticized Austria of denying members of the Habsburg family running for President of the country, this provision was also withdrawn in June 2011 by the Austrian parliament. Although the law still remains in force, it is considered largely obsolete, with the notable exception of the confiscation of the family's property in force since 1938.