Since 1870 the municipalities in European Russia have had institutions like those of the zemstvos. All owners of houses, Municipal dumas. and tax-paying merchants, artisans and workmen are enrolled on lists in a descending order according to their assessed wealth. The total valuation is then divided into three equal parts, representing three groups of electors very unequal in number, each of which elects an equal number of delegates to the municipal duma. The executive is in the hands of an elective mayor and an uprava, which consists of several members elected by the duma. Under Alexander III., however, by laws promulgated in 1892 and 1894, the municipal dumas were subordinated to the governors in the same way as the zemstvos. In 1894 municipal institutions, with still more restricted powers, were granted to several towns in Siberia, and in 1895 to some in Caucasia.
In the Baltic provinces (Courland, Livonia and Esthonia) the landowning classes formerly enjoyed considerable powers Baltic provinces. of self-government and numerous privileges in matters affecting education, police and the administration of local justice. But by laws promulgated in 1888 and 1889 the rights of police and manorial justice were transferred from the landlords to officials of the central government. Since about the same time a process of rigorous Russification has been carried through in the same provinces, in all departments of administration, in the higher schools and in the university of Dorpat, the name of which was altered to Yuriev. In 1893 district committees for the management of the peasants' affairs, similar to those in the purely Russian governments, were introduced into this part of the empire.
Judicial System.—Not the least valuable of the gifts of the “tsar emancipator,” Alexander II., to Russia was the judicial System before 1864. system established by the statute (Sudebni Ustav) of the 20th of November 1864. The system which this superseded was not indigenous to Russia, but had been set up by Peter the Great, who had taken as his model the inquisitorial procedure at that time in vogue on the continent of western Europe. Both civil and criminal procedure were secret. All the proceedings were conducted in writing, and the judges were not confronted with either the parties or the witnesses until they emerged to deliver judgment. This secrecy, combined with the fact that the judges were very ill paid, led to universal bribery and corruption. To check this courts were multiplied (there were five, six or more instances), which only multiplied the evil. Documents accumulated from court to court, till none but the clerks who had written them could tell their gist; costs were piled up; and all this, combined with the confusion caused by the chaotic mass of imperial ukazes, ordinances and ancient laws—often inconsistent or flatly contradictory—made the administration of justice, if possible, more dilatory and capricious than in the old, unreformed English court of chancery. Above all, there was no dividing line between the judiciary and the administrative functions. The judges were not so by profession; they were merely members of the official class (chinovniks), the prejudices and vices of which they shared.
Of this system—except so far as the confusion of the laws is concerned—the reform of 1864 made a clean sweep. The new Law of 1864. system established—based partly on English, partly on French models—was built up on certain broad principles: the separation of the judicial and administrative functions, the independence of the judges and courts, the publicity of trials and oral procedure, the equality of all classes before the law. Moreover, a democratic element was introduced by the adoption of the jury system and—so far as one order of tribunal was concerned—the election of judges. The establishment of a judicial system on these principles constituted, as M. Leroy-Beaulieu justly observes, a fundamental change in the conception of the Russian state, which, by placing the administration of justice outside the sphere of the executive power, ceased to be a despotism. This fact made the new system especially obnoxious to the bureaucracy, and during the latter years of Alexander II. and the reign of Alexander III. there was a piecemeal taking back of what had been given. It was reserved for the third Duma, after the revolution, to begin the reversal of this process.[1]
The system established by the law of 1864 is remarkable in that it set up two wholly separate orders of tribunals, each having their own courts of appeal and coming in contact only in the senate, as the supreme court of causation. The first of these, based on the English model, are the courts of the elected justices of the peace, with jurisdiction over petty causes, whether civil or criminal; the second, based on the French model, are the ordinary tribunals of nominated judges, sitting with or without a jury to hear important cases.
The justices of the peace, who must be landowners[2] or (in towns) persons of moderate property, are elected by the Justices of the peace. municipal dumas in the towns, and by the zemstvos in the country districts, for a term of three years. They are of two classes: (1) acting justices (uchastokvye mirovye sudi); (2) honorary justices (pochetnye mirovye sudi). The acting justice sits normally alone to hear, causes in his canton of the peace (uchastok), but, at the request of both parties to a suit, he may call in an honorary justice as assessor or substitute.[3] In all civil cases involving less than 30 roubles, and in criminal cases punishable by no more than three days' arrest, his judgment is final. In other cases appeal can be made to the “assize of the peace” (mirovye syezd), consisting of three or more justices of the peace meeting monthly (cf. the English quarter sessions), which acts both as a court of appeal and of causation. From this again appeal can be made on points of law or disputed procedure to the senate, which may send the case back for retrial by an assize of the peace in another district.
The ordinary tribunals, in their organization, personnel and procedure, are modelled very closely on those of France (see The ordinary tribunals. France, Law and Institutions). From the town judge (ispravnik), who, in spite of the principle laid down in 1864, combines judicial and administrative functions, an appeal lies (as in the case of the justices of the peace) to an assembly of such judges; from these again there is an appeal to the district court (okrugniya sud), consisting of three judges;[4] from this to the court of appeal (sudebniya palata); while over this again is the senate, which, as the supreme court of causation, can send a case for retrial for reason shown. The district court, sitting with a jury, can try criminal cases without appeal, but only by special leave in each case of the court of appeal. The senate, as supreme court of cassation, has two departments, one for civil and one for criminal cases. As a court of justice its main drawback is that it is wholly unable to cope with the vast mass of documents representing appeals from all parts of the empire.
Two important classes in Russia stood more or less outside the competence of the above systems: the clergy and the Ecclesiastical courts. peasants. The ecclesiastical courts still retain a jurisdiction over the clergy which they have lost elsewhere in Europe; and in them the old secret written procedure survives. Their interest for the laity lies
- ↑ An ukaz of 1879 gave the governors the right to report secretly on the qualifications of candidates for the office of justice of the peace. In 1889 Alexander III. abolished the election of justices of the peace, except in certain large towns and some outlying parts of the empire, and greatly restricted the right of trial by jury. The confusion of the judicial and administrative functions was introduced again by the appointment of officials as judges. In 1909 the third Duma restored the election of justices of the peace.
- ↑ The justices, though noble-landowners, are almost exclusively of very moderate means, and, though elected by the land-owning class, they are—according to M. Leroy-Beaulieu—prejudiced in favour of the poor mujik rather than of the wealthy landlord.
- ↑ These honorary justices are mainly recruited from the ranks of the higher bureaucracy and the army.
- ↑ This corresponds to the French cour d'arrondissement, but its jurisdiction is, territorially, much wider, often covering several districts or even a whole government.
