Vienna - Members of the former imperial Habsburg family are fighting to win the right to be elected Austrian president, by ending a constitutional ban of such nominations, they confirmed Wednesday. "That is a human rights violation of the worst kind," Ulrich Habsburg-Lothringen told the German Press Agency dpa.
The 68-year old agricultural expert and his daughter-in-law have filed their case with the Constitutional Court in early September and hope for a decision before next year's presidential polls.
Austria's constitution states that for presidential elections, "members of ruling families or families that ruled in the past are excluded from being eligible."
Habsburg-Lothringen said he was "definitely" interested in running for Austria's head of state, but that he was also working in the interest of other members of his family, which ruled the Austrian-Hungarian empire until 1918.
"While most of the descendants of Hitler's followers had their full rights restored, the Habsburgs did not get that," he said.
Habsburg-Lothringen serves as a councilman for the Green party in the town of Wolfsberg in Austria's south. He is a third-degree nephew of Otto von Habsburg, the son of the last emperor Charles.
Rudolf Vouk, the lawyer who represents the two Habsburgs, said that the Constitutional Court has the power to strike the words "or families that ruled in the past" from the constitution, if it finds that they conflict with democratic principles.
