Resumen de Zur Geschäftsordnungsreform des österreichischen Reichsrates vom Dezember 1909
In 1907, the (Cisleithanian) Austrian House of Representatives considered an electoral reform which was initially supposed to be connected with a comprehensive reform of the rules of procedure (Geschäftsordnungsgesetz); however, difficulties in the course of the negotiations led to the decision to let the House decide its own procedure in future. Subsequently, government bills were introduced repeatedly but remained either unfinished or altogether ignored. Furthermore, motions which were mostly politically motivated and focused only on certain aspects of procedure were put forward by various deputies.
The Austrian parliamentary system suffered from an antiquated procedure, with procedural wrangling and filibustering (Obstruktionen) against government and prime minister as impediments. At the end the eighteenth sitting of the twentieth session (15.12–19.12.1909), devoted mainly to such wrangles, saw a tactical move leading to a provisional procedural reform which was modest in content. The path towards this reform was paved with superficial discussions which were to uncover differences of opinion and breaches of the law; however, even the majority of parties who refused either reform or its development were actually in favour of it because they were after all supporters of a functioning parliamentary system. Reform contained various possibilities for speeding up the formal business routine as well as an ineffective paragraph on servants of the house (Hausknechtsabsatz), which enabled the Speaker to exclude a representative from a sitting.
Superficially, reform was designed to strengthen the Speaker of the House of Representatives but in fact none of the leading parties was really interested in getting rid of procedural obstruction by this means. What was of greater importance to them was to have an opportunity to agitate against the government or the majority in the House. Thus it does not seem surprising that shortly after the reform, obstruction started anew.
