Fundamental Rights Section In the opinion of the Ombudsman Board, it makes no difference whether the authority illegally refuses to decide on a matter because it declares itself as not being responsible or it completely deliberately fails to make any decision on the matter. In this case, the Vienna Independent Administrative Tribunal refused to make a decision over a period of 7 years and therefore infringed the right of the plaintiff to the statutory judge. Excerpt from the 24th/25th report of the Ombudsman Board to the Lower Austrian Parliament (2004 -2005) 2.4.2 Illegal declaration of a subsequent obligation; serious procedural deficiencies – Municipality of Tulln (VA NÖ/414-G/04, Municipality of Tulln 8503-02038-5) N.N. approached the Ombudsman Board and submitted that the Municipality of Tulln had pressured him with complaints and petitions to the Administrative District Authority of Tulln regarding the connection of the property ... to the local water supply line. This, despite knowledge that a legal connection obligation order did not exist. The result of the investigation procedure of the Ombudsman Board was: With an official notification of the mayor of the Municipality of Tulln dated May 13, 2002, N.N. was obligated to connect his property to the public water supply line by June 28, 2002. As reasoning, it was pointed out that every building containing common rooms, were to be supplied with faultless drinking water. As a drinking water assessment with a negative result existed for the building’s well, a connection must take place to the public water supply line. It is established that the case file does not contain any negative drinking water assessment. However, prior to receiving the official notification, N.N. was requested on two occasions to submit a drinking water assessment. The official notification was delivered to N.N. on May 16, 2002. He filed an appeal against it on May 28, 2002. With a letter from the Municipality of Tulln dated October 11, 2002 and December 12, 2002, N.N. was again requested to submit a drinking water assessment. As this request was also not complied with, the Administrative District Authority of Tulln requested the initiation of administrative criminal proceedings pursuant to Article 12 para. 1 44