340 CODIFYING RUSSIAN LAWcase. Most jurists, however, have felt that the Digest was the "authentic
interpretation of the law". At any rate, the acceptance as final authority
of an inadequate and somewhat confusing Digest handicapped greatly
the Russian legal profession in the exercise of its functions in the
interest of equitable justice.
The Digest had to be accepted as the only final authority. for one
additional reason. After the draft of the fifteen volumes had been
completed, they were .sent to various government offices for comment
and check. The offices were instructed to add all the necessary rules
and legislation on which they operated and which had not been included
in the Digest. In this way, many ministerial decisions and regulations
were included (in particular for the parts dealing with commercial and
customs law). As a result, the Digest admitted of a further confusion,
namely that of law (as issued by the legislator) and bureaucratic
regulation and prescription. To deny the Digest full and exclusive
force of law would have meant that ministerial regulations could be
easily disregarded and voided, as they were not supported by true
legislative acts.
Parallel to the collecting and digesting of Russian law, the Second
Section was also busy with the codification of the local laws of various
provinces of the Empire. Wherever written law existed, as in the case
of the Magdeburg law and the Lithuanian Statute, the procedure was
very similar to that of Russian codification. The monuments of law
were collected, collated, translated into Russian, and edited. They
were then reviewed for completeness and accuracy by selected individ-
uals called to St. Petersburg for that purpose (or found in the capital).
In the case of the laW' of the Western provinces the task was entrusted
to a very highly qualified scholar, Danilovich (a pupil of the Polish
historian, Lelewel) who acquitted himself very creditably. In many
other instances, however, the choice was not so fortunate. The Second
Section was not allowed to submit the codes for review to represent-
atives of the provinces concerned (except in the Baltic lands) or to send
them to practicing judges, lawyers, and scholars.
Except for the Baltic provinces, none of the local codes received
legislative sanction or application. Nor were they really ever intended
to. From the very beginning, Speransky conceived of the local laws
only as an addition to Russian law, to take care of special social condi-
tions or exceptional cases for which the Imperial code made no provi-
sion. Two observations should be made in connection with the
codification of local law. One deals with the text of the codes them-
selves, and the other with their implementation.