Ensuring Uniformity of Judicial Practice in the Pre-Revolutionary Period

The paper examines the historical aspect of ensuring uniformity of judicial practice in pre-revolutionary Russia. Based on literature and historical sources (cassation decisions of the Governing Senate from the 1860s), the author draws a number of conclusions. Throughout its activity, the Governing Senate ensured the uniform application of the law in one way or another. Before 1864, such powers, not legally assigned to it, were effectively ensured by the position of the Senate in the structure of state authorities of the empire. After 1864, a number of provisions of the Statute of Civil Procedure assigned these powers to the Senate and provided mechanisms for their implementation. Following the judicial reform of 1864 a discussion arose in scientific circles, similar to today’s, about the nature of the cassation decisions of the Governing Senate: whether they are acts of legal interpretation or acts of law making. Having analyzed the decisions of the Cassation Department, the author concludes that the judicial acts of the Senate were acts of legal interpretation.

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