enacted by Emperor Ferdinand in April 1848. The constitution promised increased civil liberties, provided for a limited form of democratic participation in government, and stipulated that from now on all jurisprudence would be within the purview of the emperor, implicitly promising and end to Austria's jumbled mess of landlord, estate, and ecclesiastical courts. Another milestone was an edict issued on August 21 abolishing the Supreme Judicial Office and creating the Supreme Court of Cassation (). When Ferdinand's concessions failed to appease the revolutionaries and Ferdinand was forced to abdicate, his successor, Emperor Franz Joseph, promulgated the March Constitution, elaborating on a number of the provisions of the Pillersdorf Constitution. In particular, the March Constitution confirmed that the judicial powers and responsibilities of landlords, cities, and ecclesiastical corporations were abolished. All disputes were to be settled by the State, in courts explicitly created by statutory law and according to procedure explicitly set forth in statutory law. The new constitution also expressly established judicial independence and the separation of powers of judiciary and executive. Subsequent legislation pursuant to the March Constitution created a system of general courts that also survived, with a few significant but narrow alterations, to this day. Most notably, the Constitution of the Courts ( or ) of June 1849 and the Penal Procedure Code ( or ) of January 1850 implemented an empire-wide hierarchy of trial and appellate courts that is virtually identical to the contemporary system. A statute enacted in August 1850 established the panel system and otherwise detailed Supreme Court organization and procedure. Effective 1852, Franz Joseph rescinded the March Constitution, attempting to reestablish himself as an absolute monarch. A complete rewrite of the Penal Procedure Code in 1853 eliminated judicial independence and, partially, the separation of powers. The hierarchy of trial and appellate courts in general and the Supreme Court of Cassation at its top in particular, however, survived. The Court then also survived the gradual return to constitutional rule between 1860 and 1868, although it lost jurisdiction over the eastern half of the empire when the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen gained legal independence ensuing the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. Republic The collapse of the empire at the end of World War I and the Austrian rump state's subsequent transition from monarchy to democratic republic necessitated a number of changes to Austria's system of courts of public law. The system of general