 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 courts, on the other hand, remained largely unaffected, except of course for its drastic decrease in geographic reach.A pair of laws enacted by the emerging republic's provisional government in late 1918 and early 1919 confirmed the Supreme Court in its existence.