CODIFYING RUSSIAN LAW 333illustrated or explained. When. several laws dealt with the same
problem, or when two or several such laws were conflicting, the act
issued last was alone to be taken into the Digest; for presumably it
best expressed the most recent intention of the legislator. Arranged
logically and pointing up fundamental legal principles, concepts, and
norms, the material in the Digest had to be coherent. Wherever the
legislation did not provide this coherence, transitional and connecting
paragraphs had to be added. In some cases, a summary of several acts
could be made to ensure the balance, clarity, and logic which might
be lost if all the pertinent original legislation were quoted in full. In
other instances expletive paragraphs might have to be added also. The
text of the Digest, though, had to be based on actual legislation to
which reference was made in notes.
The procedure followed in compiling the Digest was stated by
Balugianskii, speaking for Speransky, in a report to the Minister of
Justice, Prince Dashkov, March 23, 1832:
1. ... laws dealing with whole subjects of legislation are reproduced
textually from the legislative act itself; no changes are made in
such legislation, except for changes in the plan and organization
of the subject matter: when [found] scattered among several
statutes, acts, or laws, [legislation] has been combined by the
Second Section, but the contents of the articles have always been
reproduced textually. " 2. In the case of laws which do not dealwith complete subjects of legislation, the Digest ... reproduces the
more recent version textually, with the omission of words which
are self evident; where earlier laws are only explained or
complemented, the Second Section has reproduced only the very
words that complement and explain, while preserving the earlier
[laws] that contained the essence of the act. 3. Finally, in thecase ... of private acts with general force, or of only several
articles of the major legislation, or [in the case] where the meaning
of the laws is obscure or imprecise, the Second Section has been
forced to compose a new article from these old ones; [but in so
doing] it has preserved the meaning of the original on the basis of
the decrees of July 29, 1821 and October 21, 1823. The first [of
the two decrees] says that 'senators, when deciding cases state their
opinions freely, not hampered by anything and base their opinion
exclusively on the essence of the case and the direct meaning of
the law'; the second [of the decrees states], 'when, as a result of
the multiplicity of legislation and decrees, difficulty is encountered
in selecting and applying the law to which the case pertains, in
those cases, and if it is found impossible to adjust the literal
meaning of one law to the literal meaning of another, necessityitself prescribes ... to follow the general spirit of those laws which
most nearly correspond to the spirit of the legislation'." 1
1 Quoted in G. E. Blosfel'dt, "Zakonnaia" sUa Svoda 2c::konov v svete arkhivnykh