December Constitution

The December Constitution, known in German as the Dezemberverfassung, was a set of six constitutional laws proclaimed by Emperor Franz Joseph on December 21, 1867 as the fundamental law of Cisleithania, the Austrian half of Austria-Hungary. It established a constitutional monarchy with a bicameral Reichsrat, guaranteed basic civil rights and liberties to state citizens, and set out the division of powers between the emperor, the government and the legislature. The December Constitution remained the supreme law of Cisleithania until the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed in 1918. Between 1918 and 1920 five of its six constituent laws were replaced by the new Austrian Federal Constitutional Law, but the sixth, the Basic Law on the General Rights of Citizens, was carried forward and remains part of Austria's constitutional order today, alongside later international human rights instruments.