Волостная юстиция в Российской империи после отмены крепостного права

Abstract

© 2019 Rossiiskaya Akademiya Nauk, Institut Istorii Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of General Hist. All rights reserved. On the materials of federal and regional archives, the author analyzes the problems of organization and activity of volost justice in the Russian Empire after the abolition of serfdom. The class structure of society, the diluted legal and regulatory framework for regulating the judicial process of volost judges and magistrates, the parallel coexistence of ordinary and positive law, the archaic system of appeals of peasant cases led to constant conflicts in the jurisdiction of small court cases and their prolongation, softness and polarity of decisions of volost judges for identical criminal misconduct, the absence of a unified approach in the system of cassation appeal, casuistry, bureaucratic red tape and the involvment of higher court to resolve minor misconduct, and, consequently, distrust of a large part of the country’s population to the local court.