312 in Sweden there are different main courts, which are called courts of appeals (gofgerikhty). In this court, all cases that have to do with justice, without any exception, are dealt with, (emphasis added) The Swedish court of appeals claimed the exclusive right to adjudicate common civil and criminal cases, but, as we have seen, the ordinance on trials of 1614 also required the court to serve as the first judicial instance when it came to disputes between noblemen concerning real estate. The other Swedish colleges, too, had a certain amount of juridical power, although this was principally a matter of the special jurisdiction attached to each college’s specific administrative role. For example, the kanslikollegium adjudicated cases of misconduct on the part of government officials, w^hile the krigskollegium and the amiralitetskollegium adjudicated cases concerning military discipline, and the kammarkollegiumadjudicated cases concerning the administration of state funds.^“ After listing Sweden’s several courts of appeals, Matveev stated that: now we request most humbly from His Tsarist Majesty a decision concerning the college of justice, which (cases), only those concerning the landholdings of the nobility {pomestnye dela) or also disputes {sudnye dela), as in Sweden, shall it be so also in this college, and with what competence (sila), shall there be only one in St. Petersburg or (shall there be ones) in provinces and towns? And these provincial and town courts, where shall they be directed in the administration of justice (rasprava), here in the main college or somewhere else according to His Majesty’s high scrutiny? Matveev obviously had no clear understanding of either the college’s jurisdiction or of its place in the judicial hierarchy. In his resolution, the tsar stipulated that only one high court was to be established at St. Petersburg and that, in accordance with Swedish practices, that court was to have jurisdiction over legal disputes among the nobility concerning real estate (“pomestnomu prikazu byt’ osoblivo, [dlia umnozheniia del], odnokozh, pod upravleniem iustits-kollegii”). As for the position of the iustits-kollegiia in the judicial hierarchy, Peter proclaimed that “there are to be courts in the towns, and a main (court) in each guberniia, and the lower ones shall be under them, and the main (courts) in the guhernii shall be under the iustits-kollegiia." From this answer one can discern a three-tiered system of courts: lower courts in “the towns,” an intermediate court in each guherniia, and a supreme court in the capital, namely the iustits-kollegiia. This hierarchy described by the tsar coincided with the Swedish hierarchy, with the two lower courts corresponding to the Swedish district courts {häradsrätter) and provincial JÄGERSKIÖLD (1964), 228. ZA (no. 378), 368—369. Ibid., 368.
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