In Austrian constitutional law, a supreme executive organ (), is an elected official, political appointee, or collegiate body with ultimate responsibility for a certain class of administrative decisions – either decisions in some specific of public administration or decisions of some specific . The president, for example, is the supreme executive organ with regards to appointing judges; the minister of justice is the supreme executive organ with regards to running the prosecution service; the president of the Constitutional Court is the supreme executive organ with regards to the operational management of the Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court itself, on the other hand, is not a supreme organ because its decisions, while definitive, are judicial and not administrative in nature. Although supreme executive organs, by definition, cannot be overruled by any other person or institution in the executive branch, the constitution still means for them to be politically answerable to the officials, institutions, or electorates that have installed them. The president, for instance, is elected by the people and can be recalled by the people; the chancellor is appointed by the president and can be dismissed by the president; governors are elected by provincial legislatures and can be removed by provincial legislatures. Most supreme executive organs can also be impeached or removed through parliamentary motions of no confidence. Background Austria is a parliamentary republic. The constitution establishes a number of features that can make the country look semi-presidential from a distance; most notably, the Austrian chancellor and the rest of the cabinet are not elected by the legislature but appointed by the president, who is in turn elected directly by the people. The semi-presidential elements are mostly nominal, however; the country is almost purely parliamentary in practice. Like any other parliamentary republic, Austria has no systematic separation of powers between its legislative and executive branches of government; the constitution engenders an intermingling of the two branches that has the effect of a fusion of powers instead. The intermingling exists on all three levels of government: On the national level, the cabinet is unable to govern effectively without majority support in the National Council because the day-to-day administration of the country requires frequent updates to legislation. The National Council can also overthrow the cabinet through a vote of no confidence, which only requires a simple majority. As a result, the chancellor is chosen by the president on paper only; the president is