Linear courts and military tribunals in East Siberia during the Great Patriotic War

Linear courts and military-transport tribunals were a special transport court whose jurisdiction included offenses committed by employees of rail and water transport and specialized enterprises and also by third persons who committed offenses on the truck. Rail and water transport members of tribunals solved problems uncharacteristic for judges and lay judges of courts of general jurisdiction: vehicle downtime, thefts in transport, transport downtime. It showed the knowledge not only of the law but also of technology. The article to the activity of liner vessels and waterway transport tribunals of Eastern Siberia which included the relevant courts of the Angara, Selenginsky and Yenisei pools. Since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War the conversion of production industry and transport to the war rail-tracks began. A spike of transport militarization was the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 15 April 1943 "On imposing of the martial law on all railways." This document made railroad and military men equal. And they carried the proper measure of responsibility. Departmental courts were given the right to send the railroad men who went beyond the law to the front, to penal companies. Linear courts and later military tribunals of water basins considered criminal cases opened for causes of accidents, ship downtime, thefts from ships, barges and warehouses. Numerous cases of accidents caused by the incompetence of some river transport workers, their frivolous attitude to official duties did great material damage to the state. Only in the Angara shipping company in the first half of 1942 there were 19 cases of accidents during the navigation period. As the result the state suffered heavy losses. During this period a linear court considered 7 criminal cases on accidents with ships resulting in the state losing more than 78 000 rubles. 12 people were brought to trial for accidents, 8 of them were sentenced to imprisonment, 4 were sentenced to compulsory works for 1 year. Downtime and thefts caused no less harm. Before the courts water transport there was a task to punish perpetrators of these incidents and misconduct in order to facilitate the normal operation of water transport. Consideration of counter-revolutionary crimes was within competence of linear courts and military tribunals of water transport. So, in the first quarter of 1945 a military tribunal of the Yenisei basin received 10 criminal cases initiated under criminal article 58-10 (anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda). In the fourth quarter of 1944 out of 10 convicted people 2 were sentenced to 10 years in prison, 5 - for a period of 6 to 9 years, 2 - to 5 years. Among counterrevolutionaries at water transport dominated those who did not hide their dissatisfaction with the policy of the Soviet government and the current situation in the country. In addition to the repressive methods, linear courts and military tribunals of water transport were engaged in explanatory work among river workers and analyzed the judicial practice to determine the causes of crimes.

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