Liability for the most dangerous crimes under the Pskovian Judicial Charter

It is noted in the artide that the Pskovian Judicial Charter was the first legislative ad of andent Rus and it contained a separate group of the most dangerous mimes. The list of these mimes induded arson, support of an enemy and some types of stealing: theft from churches (sacrilege), theft of a horse and theft for the third time. The Charter determined some spedal legal consequences of such mimes. It prescribed “not to be allowed to proted the stomach” for those who committed such mimes and this expression is often interpreted in the literature as “to punish by death” though in andent Russian statutory ads the word “stomach” had the meaning “property”. If we refer to the chronicles of Russian law of past ages we’ll find that in the XIII-XV centuries capital punishment was used for the most dangerous crimes. But the Pskovian Judicial Charter could not be the legal source to allow that type of punishment. Due to the fact that Old Russian religious legal system was based on Christianity, capital punishment for the most serious crimes was authorized by the laws of Greek (Byzantine emperors- for arson and support of enemies) and Horden ( Mongol khans -for serious thefts) tsars. Thus, the Pskovian Judicial Charter didn’t impose capital punishment as a new type. But it regulated the property consequences of the most dangerous crimes. The rule “not to be allowed to protect the stomach” was a prohibiting one. It prescribed the judges to refuse an application of a criminal “to protect his stomach”. Such prohibitions were known to other nations and were used for an exclusion from a community. The very opportunity to decide whether “to protect or not to protect one’s stomach” probably derives from the custom in Pskov to keep movable property outside the yard in the town or in the suburb. The Pskovian Judicial Charter deprived a criminal of the possibility to dispose of his property (“stomach”) which was converted to the use of the town community. The criminal could neither buy off the death nor make his property inheritable. Such a category of criminals who didn’t have the right to buy off death was known to the law of other states, e.g. China. Moreover, the Old Russian rule “not to protect the stomach” has the same consequences for the property of a criminal as the rule of Roman law about the “inherited” character of some crimes.

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