The research project deals with the development, structure and activity of the highest organs of the state, including their formation and powers and the processes of political decision-making and legislation. The supreme organs of state - those which govern and direct the state - are known in the German literature as "constitutional organs". They form the "specific nature of the state". Of primary interest is their position in the structure of state authority. As early as 1924, in the introduction to his dissertation on `The organization of the highest authorities in the Liechtenstein Constitution of October 1921 ', Otto Ludwig Marxer maintained that one could see "from the way the [highest authorities] were appointed, what powers were conferred on them, and especially from the nature of their relationship to each other ... what were the founding ideas and principles which went into the making of the constitution and gave it its particular character".
The still current 1921 Constitution has a pre-history like any other constitution. It is the result of an historical process which led from monarchical absolutism, via monarchical constitutionalism, to the present constitutional monarchy on a democratic and parliamentary basis; or in other words, from the old class-based constitution [“altstaendische Verfassung” - from “Stand” meaning “class”; also used, in the Swiss context since the 15th century, to refer to the Cantons] via the constitutional to the current one. The function and significance of the history of the constitution derives from that process of “maturation” over centuries which led to the present constitutional order, whose essential character - also as an object of research - are, according to Dietmar Willoweit, “those legal rules and structures which give form to the body politic and thus to the political order”. It is an indispensable aid to the understanding and interpretation of the Constitution. An agreement about the constitution is met, which requires a historically rooted constitutional knowledge and a corresponding constitutional sense.
The close link between the historical evolution of the constitution and the current governmental and constitutional structure determines the methodological point of view of the investigation.
The description of the current constitutional position in the second part is preceded in the first part by a historical review of constitutional law, which forms the starting point and the underpinning of the research project.
A thorough examination of the state doctrine of constitutionalism and its embodiment in the Constitutional Constitution of 1862 is necessary, since its successor - the current constitution of 1921 - is committed to constitutionalism, even if its origins in the post-WWI period belong to a different historical and political era, which in Germany and Austria led to democratic constitutional revolutions. In this synopsis, the focus of attention is on the evolution of the basic structures of the constitutional monarchy.
The organisation of the state in the 1921 constitution remains dualistic. But the relationship between the prince and the people, i.e. the relative positions of the prince and people, have changed. Article 2 of the constitution introduces a rupture with the traditional monarchical principle, in enshrining the authority of the state in both prince and people. The constitutional-legal questions about the nature of the Liechtenstein state which result from that rupture - including also the whole concept of the state - have still not been adequately answered, making it necessary for the subject to be taken up and subjected to reappraisal.
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[1] Vgl. auch Art. 1 Abs. 1 StGHG, der in Anlehnung an Art. 1 deutsches BVerfGG von „Verfassungsorgan“ spricht.
[2] Klaus Stern, Das Staatsrecht Der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bd. II, München 1980, S. 42 und 344.
[3] Dietmar Willoweit, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte, 3. Auflage, München 1997, S. 2.
[4] Vgl. Werner Frotscher/Bodo Pieroth, Verfassungsgeschichte, 10. Auflage, München 2011, S. 1 Rz. 3.
[5] Ewald Grothe, Neue Wege der Verfassungsgeschichte in Deutschland, in: Beiheft 18 zu „Der Staat“, Verfassungsgeschichte in Europa, Berlin 2010, S. 123 (144).
[6] Vgl. Dieter Gosewinkel/Johannes Masing, Die Verfassungen in Europa 1789-1949, München 2006, S. 54.