329 system was not to get very far. In view of the social and legal traditions in Russia, practical problems arose when the Swedish organizational forms were applied to Russian conditions. When it comes to the iustits-kollegiia itself, it is possible to see from President Matveev’s letters to the tsar that difficulties were encountered in setting up the new collegial routines. In 1722, Matveev complained about the enormous amount of work he and the college had been called upon to perform, pointing out that he had little time to be in the college and to supervise its activities, since he and the other college presidents were to attend meetings of the Senate three days a week. “And in two days,” he continued, “the members of the college cannot alone, in my absence, handle the college’s administration of justice and make decisions without me, for which reason there are always continual interruptions in the many matters of business.” In addition, Matveev argued that the college lacked competent personnel for the performance of its duties, which meant that its work proceeded very slowly. Cases appealed to the iustits-kollegiia could thus remain unresolved for a long time. Alongside of the purely organizational difficulties, Matveev mentioned other problems which interfered with the work of the college. He wrote to the tsar that there were: distinguished people who have business against them fi'om the prosecutors and such people as help their relatives and friends, who seeing that, in spite of enticements and all sorts of advantages, I do not favor them when it comes to their business, they and their friends and families have all sorts of plans and threaten to do me permanent ruin in the eyes of Your Majesty and in the Senate, for which reason I in my most extreme isolation always find myself in danger from them, for hardly even Hercules could stand up to two (of them). A dispute over jurisdiction with the Preobrazhenskii prikaz caused the college further difficulties in defending its position as the central organ for the administration of justice. In a presentation to the tsar in July 1719, the college pointed out that the Preobrazhenskii prikaz was adjudicating “many civil cases and cases dealing with landholding . . . which, according to Your Tsarist Majesty’s most gracious ukazes {nastoiashchie imennye ukazy), definitely fall under the college and the Pomestnyi prikaz. The Preobrazhenskii prikaz was thus interfering with matters which were under the jurisdiction of the iustits-kollcgiia, and since no measures were taken to resolve this dispute, the college returned to the matter in a letter 105 the city courts were not, as in Sweden, under the jurisdiction of the courts of appeals. See the chapter on the local administrative reform, above p. 266. Bogoslovskii (1902), 201. XA (no. 387), 382—383. 2A (no. 383), 380. 105
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