case reviewed by a
tribunal constituted with special view to permanence, independence,
and impartiality. High-handed administrative acts which are covered by
statute, however, are beyond its reach, for, like all Austrian
tribunals, it is forbidden to question the validity of a duly
promulgated law.[684]

[Footnote 684: Dodd, Modern Constitutions, I.,
84-85.]

*537. The Provincial Governments: Composition of the Diet.*--Each of the
seventeen political divisions of the Empire has a government of its
own, established on the basis of its Landesordnung, or provincial
constitution. The executive, for affairs that are considered strictly
divisional, consists of a provincial council, the _Landesausschuss_,
composed of the president of the diet (nominated by the Emperor) as
_ex-officio_ chairman and from four to eight members variously elected
within the province. Imperial interests are specially represented in
the province, however, by a _Statthalter_, or _Landespraesident_,
appointed by the crown, and independent of local control.

Functions of legislation are vested in a Landtag, or diet. The
provincial diet of the modern type came into being under the operation
of the Imperial diploma of October 20, 1860 (superseded by that of
February 26, 1861), replacing the ancient assembly of estates which in
most provinces had persisted until 1848. From 1860 onwards diets were
established in one after another of the provinces, until eventually
all were so equipped. Originally the diets were substantially uniform
in respect to both composition and powers. Aside from certain
_ex-officio_ members, they were composed of deputies chosen for six
years by four electoral curiae: the great proprietors, the chambers of
commerce, the towns, and the rural communes; and, until 1873, one of
their principal functions was the election of the provincial
delegation in the lower house of the Reichsrath. Each of the seventeen
provincial diets as to-day constituted consists of a single chamber,
and in most instances the body is composed of (1) the archbishops (p. 486)
and bishops of the Catholic and Orthodox Greek churches; (2) the
rectors of universities, and, in Galicia, the rector of the technical
high school of Lemberg and the president of the Academy of Sciences of
Cracow; (3) the representatives of great estates, elected by all
landowners paying land taxes of not less than 100, 200, 400, or 500
crowns, accord