The features of the structure of justices of the peace in pre-revolutionary Siberia: issues of judicial independence and execution of non-judicial duties

In article the author considers the organization of the legal agency nearest to the population in a separate and specific part of the country. The judicial reform of 1864 established an elected and independent justice of the peace court in the Russian Empire, which underwent significant changes in the distribution in regions of the country and in 1889 was eliminated in the villages of European Russia. In Siberia, it was introduced at the end of the 19th century having experienced the consequences of the smaller role of judicial authorities in its structure. Justices of the peace were not elected and were deprived of tenure, their rank dropped, salaries decreased, they were granted non-judicial functions. All this limited the independence of the justice of the peace court, and was caused by the conservative government policy in the judicial sphere. Its spokesmen at that time were Minister of Justice Nikolay V. Mura-vyev and most of members of the 1894-1899 Commission he headed that was engaged in the revision of the provisions of the judicial statutes of Alexander II. Plans of capital officials to minimize the influence of the liberal element in the organizations of the Russian judicial system and economize public finances found application in experiments in the imperial borderlands which had negative or at least doubtful results. In Siberia, the justices of the peace overloaded with responsibilities and different official burdens did not cope with their duties, their service became unattractive, they did not have authority among the population, which they could count on in case of their independent status. Experience showed that the judicial power in the person of justice of the peace officials was not close to people; the incompatibility of their duties only distanced justice from the Siberians who declared their desire to have an electoral, independent and close court. Local lawyers, both practitioners and theorists (professors of Tomsk University), insisted on the implementation of the principle of judicial independence in organization of the justice of the peace court and on the exclusion of crime investigation from the list of its functions. Heads of judicial institutions of the region tried to rid judges from investigator's duties using the right granted by the law. In 1911, after increasing the justice of the peace court staff, the separation of judicial powers from investigative ones was considerably successful, but judicial autonomy restored in the local Russian courts in 1912 was not introduced in Siberia. In general, the experience of the decrease in the legal status of justices of the peace and their multifunctionality in the conditions of Siberia showed its insolvency.

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