Jurist says Vienna time out home lacks legal basis

Constitutional lawyer Heinz Mayer says Vienna’s time out shared home for children below the age of criminal responsibility who repeatedly commit serious offences has no legal basis, ORF reported. The facility can accommodate a maximum of two children, while the Heimaufenthaltsgesetz, Austria’s law on residential placements, requires at least three places, he said.

“A house with two places is not a home,” Mayer told the Austrian Press Agency. In his view, the requirement means the facility itself does not have a legal foundation.

Vienna’s child and youth welfare department, Municipal Department 11, takes a different view. It said the minimum size had been thoroughly discussed and that the relevant organisational unit was the entire provider, neue wege, rather than the individual shared home.

A spokesperson for Justice Minister Anna Sporrer of the Social Democratic Party said this interpretation was legally defensible. Mayer said the courts would ultimately have to decide whether the argument held up. He added that such an interpretation would apply especially if all facilities run by a provider had the same management.

A judge provisionally approved restrictions on the freedom of the facility’s first resident, a 13-year-old boy, at an initial hearing on Friday. The question of the minimum number of places was not raised at that hearing, said Markus Riedl, a spokesperson for the Inner City District Court.

The court has commissioned assessments from specialists in child and adolescent psychiatry and in therapeutic and special education. They are to determine whether the restrictions on the boy’s freedom can be replaced by other measures.

The court will decide on the boy’s continued stay in the shared home at a closed hearing on August 19.

The dispute follows the publication of a 17-page concept paper by provider neue wege, dated July. The paper describes the facility’s basic concept and has drawn sharp criticism, with experts calling for it to be disclosed and examined transparently.

Vienna’s centre-right Austrian People’s Party submitted a question to the responsible city councillor and deputy mayor, Bettina Emmerling of the NEOS party, on Monday. The child and youth welfare department has described the concept as well developed in both content and legal terms and said it expected the court to reach the same assessment.