Fundamental Rights Section
though Art. 54c of the VStG had already been repealed per the expiration of December
31, 2001.
For the AOB, if an authority gives incorrect notice on right of legal recourse, this constitutes a case of administrative grievance, since it can lead to massive legal problems for
the person mislead in such a manner, thereby detrimentally affecting the de facto efficiency of legal protection as dictated in constitutional law.
Thanks to the AOB’s intervention, the obsolete document was removed so that similar
errors cannot be repeated.
2.1.3
Prerequisites for substantiating grievances to the AOB
(VA BD/57-V/03)
The chief of a Federal Police Headquarters questioned the substantiation of a complainant’s objection to the AOB, stating, “By failing to submit an appeal within the stipulated
time, the accused (who is indubitably obligated to participate in this matter – “Duty to
Rescue” as set out in Art. 1304 of the Civil Code) is at fault in missing a deadline which
can neither be reset nor circumvented by filing a grievance with the AOB.”
Art. 148a Par. 1 of the Federal Constitution states that anyone may file a grievance with
the AOB on grounds of alleged grievances with the administration to the extent that
he/she is affected by such grievances and as long as such a means of legal recourse is
not or no longer available to him/her. Therefore, a grievance filed with the AOB is also
permissible if the party concerned can no longer avail him/herself of a means of legal recourse to which he/she is entitled per se, whereby the reason for this impossibility is just
as irrelevant as any and all blame which may apply to the party concerned. The reference
to Art. 1304 of the Civil Code fails to consider the fact that the legal standard proscribed
by this statutory law is not applicable in the given context since the prerequisites for substantiating a grievance to the AOB are conclusively established in Art. 148a of the Federal
Constitution.
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