Eduard Herbst (9 December 1820 – 25 June 1892) was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n jurist and politician. He served as Minister of Justice in the " Citizens' Ministry" of Cisleithania from 1867 to 1870.

Life

Born in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, Herbst studied law at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hist ...

and obtained his doctorate in 1843. He commenced civil service and in 1847 became a professor of criminal law and the philosophy of law at the

University of Lemberg The University of Lviv ( uk, Львівський університет, Lvivskyi universytet; pl, Uniwersytet Lwowski; german: Universität Lemberg, briefly known as the ''Theresianum'' in the early 19th century), presently the Ivan Franko Na ...

(Lviv), promoted to rector in 1853. From 1858, he was

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

at the

Charles University in Prague ) , image_name = Carolinum_Logo.svg , image_size = 200px , established = , type = Public, Ancient , budget = 8.9 billion CZK , rector = Milena Králíčková , faculty = 4,057 , administrative_staff = 4,026 , students = 51,438 , undergr ...

. Herbst was elected deputy to the

Bohemian Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to: *Anything of or relating to Bohemia Beer * National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst * Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors Culture and arts * Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...

Diet in 1861, and, in accordance with the

February Patent The February Patent was a constitution of the Austrian Empire promulgated in the form of letters patent on 26 February 1861. Background In the Austrian Empire, the early 1860s were a period of significant constitutional reforms. The revolutions ...

, was sent by the Diet to the lower House of Deputies of the Austrian Imperial Council (''Reichsrat''). A gifted speaker and firebrand, he became one of the most conspicuous members of the liberal Constitutional Party in parliament. Herbst had agitated against the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867; nevertheless, after the implementation of the December Constitution, he was appointed Minister of Justice in the liberal cabinet ('' Bürgerministerium'') of Cisleithanian minister-president Prince Karl of Auersperg on December 30. Eduard Herbst 1881

As such, he introduced a number of important reforms—among them the abolition of imprisonment for debt, the introduction of the jury in libel suits against the press, the organization of the district courts, important finance measures, and, above all, the confessional ordinances of 1868. Herbst retained his office under Auersperg's successor Eduard Taaffe, with whom he fell out in 1870, when he sided with Education Minister Leopold Hasner von Artha against Taaffe's federalist policies; he and Hasner resigned on April 4. His party lost its control of the government, and he led the German liberal opposition in the Reichsrat in its attacks on the cabinets of Alfred Jozef Potocki and

Karl Sigmund von Hohenwart Count Karl Sigmund von Hohenwart (german: Karl Graf von Hohenwart; 12 February 1824 in Vienna – 26 April 1899) was an Austrian politician who served as Minister-President of Austria in 1871. Hohenwart’s government attempted to implement a Fede ...

. The fall of the latter, in October 1871, brought the Constitutional Party more into power, when Herbst became a leader of the government forces in the Austrian Lower House. He remained an advocate of centralist German-Liberal politics and stood out as an opponent of the

Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina fell under Austro-Hungarian rule in 1878, when the Congress of Berlin approved the occupation of the Bosnia Vilayet, which officially remained part of the Ottoman Empire. Three decades later, in 1908, Austria-Hungary pr ...

in 1878. In the latter years of his life, however, during the second cabinet of Minister-president Taaffe from 1879 onwards, Herbst lost much of his former influence because of a split in his former compact party. Herbst also was a profound legal academic. Among his writings may be mentioned his ''Handbuch des österreichischen Strafrechts'' (7th edition, 1882–84).

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