Legitimacy Deficits of Austrian Legal COVID-19 Measures. From Emergency Action to Economic Crisis Governance

The Austrian Government reacted fast and successful to the COVID-19 Crisis in March 2020. The following paper analysis the legal and structural challenges of this response. As a state of emergency was not declared officially the Austrian Constitution had to be fully applied. Not only questions of legality of the governmental measures, especially the compliance with the constitutional principle of the rule of law, arose, but also a reluctance towards transparency and accountability could be observed. The paper looks out for the lacks of legitimacy in the governmental measures including emergency action as well as the economic crisis governance