Wolfgang Brandstetter
Member of the Constitutional Court
In office 27 February 2018 – 7 June 2021
Appointed by	Federal Government
Vice-Chancellor of Austria
In office 17 May 2017 – 18 December 2017
Chancellor	Christian Kern
Preceded by	Reinhold Mitterlehner
Succeeded by	Heinz-Christian Strache
Minister of Justice
In office 16 December 2013 – 18 December 2017
Chancellor	Werner Faymann Christian Kern
Preceded by	Beatrix Karl
Succeeded by	Josef Moser
Personal details
Born	(1957-10-07) 7 October 1957 (age 66) Haag, Austria
Political party	Independent
Children	3
Education	University of Vienna

Wolfgang Brandstetter is an independent Austrian politician and legal scholar who served as a member of the Constitutional Court of Austria from 2018 to 2021. He previously served as the Minister of Justice of Austria, as well as the country's Vice Chancellor.^[1][2]

Career

In 2007 Brandstetter became director of the Institute for Austrian and European Economic Criminal Law at the Vienna University of Economics and Business.^[3]

Brandstetter was chosen to be a member of the Werner Faymann cabinet in December 2013, designated to serve as the country's Minister of Justice. He later succeeded Reinhold Mitterlehner in becoming the Vice-Chancellor of Austria in May 2017.^{[4][circular reference]}

Brandtstetter left office upon the swearing-in of Heinz-Christian Strache to his position on 18 December 2017.^[5] In 2018, he served as a special adviser to European Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality Věra Jourová on rule-of-law issues.^[6][7]

Member of the Constitutional Court, 2018–2021

In February 2018 Brandstetter was appointed as a member of the Constitutional Court of Austria.

When prosecutors opened a probe in 2021 into whether Chancellor Sebastian Kurz had lied to a parliamentary committee investigating allegations of corruption by members of his previous government, Brandstetter also became a subject of criminal investigations.^[8][9]

In June 2021, Brandstetter resigned following the publication of a series of private text messages sent to him by former colleague Christian Pilnacek (suspended section head in the Austrian Ministry of Justice) containing sexist and racist language.^[10][11]

Honours

• Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Principality of Liechtenstein (11 February 2019).^[12]

References

This article about an Austrian politician is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e