Adaptation of Imperial Jurisdiction of Magistrates’ courts in Transcaucasia

Abstract

The formation of general, unified state institutions in multiethnic countries has always posed a challenge. Gradual introduction of new jurisdiction on the basis of the Judicial Statutes of 1864 into the entire Russian Empire became a large-scale practice of creating such institutions. The article discusses the process of the establishing and functioning of magistrates ‘courts (mirovoy sud) in the South Caucasus. The research has shown the necessity to reconsider the existing opinion in historiography on the radical contrast between the new judicial system and judicial and legal practices of the people of Transcaucasia. Models of insurmountable dualism of opposing cultural-legal systems are, on closer examination, one-sided and inadequate. The article demonstrates that there were common features between the new jurisdiction, its procedural and legal base, and local judicial and legal views and practices. The imperial legislation partially incorporated the provisions of the regional legal code and canonical law. Imperial courts partly used customary law. Communication channels were formed between the new courts and local communities. There was a kind of personnel “indigenization” of the imperial court. The paper proves that magistrates’ courts occupied an important and irreplaceable niche in the region. The guarantees of justice and gradual adaptation to local realities made it demanded by the local population. Models of hybridity, symbiotic institutional and cultural- legal spaces, which are being developed in post-colonial studies, seem to be more suitable for describing the interaction between judicial and legal institutions of the empire and its borderlands.