The membership of district courts in Tobolsk and Tomsk provinces in the first quarter of the 19th century

The article aims to study the practice of personnel administration of the public civil service in the sphere of justice in the regions of Siberia in the first quarter of the 19th century. The article uses complexes of documents of 1814 and 1825 that also allow estimating the consequences of the "administrative" reform carried out in the territory of the Asian part of Russia in 1822. The article presents a detailed analysis of changes in the staff composition of the county and district courts of Tobolsk and Tomsk provinces in the first quarter of the 19th century, of results of development of the regional group of prereform judicial bureaucracy. Personnel regulatory bodies of the public civil service on the territory of Western Siberia managed to support skilled justice enforcement officers. Experience of preliminary service of officials remained objectively diversified; however, positions were mainly given to the owners of positive characteristics from the authorities. The proportion of the retired officers was significantly reduced by the end of the first quarter of the 19th century. The staff of officials was updated due to the "administrative" reform carried out in Siberia in 1822. At the same time there were people who passed trainings in bodies of provincial or central management. Among judicial officials there was a stable group of people represented by persons with experience in judicial office work. After updating of the list of officials during the judicial reform their average experience of activity in the sphere of justice decreased compared with 1814 among assessors from 7 to 5 and 3 years, among judges from 10 to 7 and 6 years. The age of both assessors and judges after the reform also went down. The origin of the West Siberian officials remained diverse. In the 1810s-1820s, representatives of hereditary noblemen, including the specific group of local noblemen, and also sons of the lower military ranks were outplaced from courts of the first instance of Tobolsk and Tomsk provinces by natives of families of other categories of the population: personal noblemen and hereditary civil servants, ecclesiastics. The level of offenses among the officials occupied in legal proceedings formally was far from the critical point threatening with the destruction of the justice system. Thus, the "administrative reform" of the supreme power succeeded to create a qualified list of judicial officials in the territory of Western Siberia.

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