Rate My Professor Magdalena Pöschl

Magdalena Pöschl is Univ.-Prof. Dr. and Head of the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law in the Faculty of Law at the University of Vienna, a position she has held since 2012. Born in 1970 in Innsbruck, Austria, she studied law at the Universities of Innsbruck and Vienna from 1988 to 1992, earning her Dr. iur. degree from the University of Innsbruck in 1995. Her early career included roles as a civil service assistant at the Department of Public Law and Political Science at the University of Innsbruck (1993-1997), legal trainee at district and provincial courts in Innsbruck (1996), academic employee at the Austrian Constitutional Court (1997-1998), and university assistant at Innsbruck (1999-2004). In 2004, she received authorization to teach constitutional and administrative law based on her habilitation thesis "Gleichheit vor dem Gesetz." She subsequently served as university professor at Innsbruck (March-September 2004), at the University of Salzburg in public law, constitutional and administrative law (2004-2006), and at the University of Graz in Austrian, European, and comparative public law, political science, and administration (2006-2012). Pöschl has been a full member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) Division of Humanities and Social Sciences since 2012. She previously served on the Bioethics Committee at the Federal Chancellery (2009-2013), as substitute member of the Bundeskommunikationssenat (2011-2013), and on the ÖAW fellowship committee (2011-2021). Early awards include the Prize of the Principality of Liechtenstein for Scientific Research at the Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck and the Förderpreis of the Juristische Blätter.

Her research focuses on fundamental rights, legal protection, law of government bodies, general administrative law, research law, trade law, immigration law, constitutional law, administrative law, democracy, rule of law, direct democracy, and norm control. With 99 publications documented in the University of Vienna's UCRIS portal, key works include "Gleichheit vor dem Gesetz" (Springer, 2008; 956 pages), "Die Zukunft der Verfassung" (Sramek, 2010), "Migration und Mobilität" (Manz, 2015; Gutachten for the 19th Austrian Jurists' Congress), "Sicherung grund- und menschenrechtlicher Standards gegenüber neuen Gefährdungen durch private und ausländische Akteure" (De Gruyter, 2015), and "Normative Grenzen der Wissenschaftsfreiheit" (Böhlau, 2017). Recent contributions feature "Ist 'mehr direkte Demokratie' die Lösung?" (Verlag Österreich, 2024), "Normenkontrolle im Wettlauf mit der Zeit" (Verlag Österreich, 2024), and "Demokratie und Rechtsstaat: Was sie eint und was sie trennt" (ÖAW, 2025). She is a member of Societas Iuris Publici Europaei, the Vereinigung der Deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer, and the Österreichische Juristenkommission, and has delivered 56 talks and oral contributions as recorded in UCRIS.