332 judicial jurisdiction in their respective districts. The attempt to establish an independent judiciary, then, had failed.^^" The Petrine court system was finally dismantled altogether by the Supreme Privy Council. The courts of appeals were closed in 1727, and the Council decided that, “as earlier, the entire administration of justice and power of adjudication (shall be) given to the governors and voevodas, and from the governors appeals (are to be made) to the iustits-kollegiia." The Council argued that the changes would make things easier for people, since, “instead of different and many chancelleries and judges, they will only know of one chancellery," and that the closing of the courts would reduce state expenditures. One must seek the explanations for this development in the legal and administrative traditions of Russian society. The administration of justice never constituted an autonomous sphere of responsibility, but had instead been included as part of a general exercise of power. Russian serfdom naturally played an important role in this situation. As Heinrich Pick had pointed out in his memorandum on the Swedish courts, the institution of serfdom made a system of lower courts superfluous, since Russian landlords themselves exercised complete judicial power over their serfs. Furthermore, some important preconditions for an independent and uniform administration of justice, such as legally trained judges, simply did not exist, and this state of affairs could not be altered during the short period of time provided by the reform. It would not be until the nineteenth century that Russia would have an independent corps of lawyers with a developed legal consciousness. The administration and the judiciary would not be separated from one another altogether until the reform of the trial system introduced in 1864. 118 3. Procedural Reform Another way to achieve more effective control of the administration of justice, that is, in addition to organizational measures in the administrative and judicial system, was to regulate procedural routines by means of a uniform and detailed system of rules. In this manner it was possible not only to prevent judges and other functionaries of the courts from exercising their judicial powers arbitrarily, which was not in the interest of the regime, but also to increase the prerogatives of the judges, as represenlu. V. Got’e, “Otdelenie sudebnoi vlasti ot administrativnoi," in N. V. Davydov & N. N. PoLiANSKii, eds., Sudebnaia reforma (Moscow, 1915), 191 —192. SIRIO, LXIII, 140, 254; cf. above in the chapter on local administrative reform, p. 290.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=