An Age of Reform 367
detail how inmates were to be housed, fed, and even taught to read.^78 There
'.'.'ere to be 16 such establishments, n·ith room for 6,800 detai1it~~. Uui the
facilities promised did not all materialize in practice and there was serious
overcrowding in some centres. By 1879 the number of detainees had fallen to
2,200; some men were returned to their units but others were sent to perform
forced labour or transferred to military prisons, which were usually located in
old fortresses.^79
These changes were accompanied by new procedural rules designed to
ensure that the accused received a fair trial. Hitherto military tribunals,
expected to keep strictly to the book, ha~ lacked the capacity to come to an
independent decision. Their verdicts were passed upward for review to various
administrative agencies and even, through the Auditor-General, to the tsar.
Decisions were inordinately delayed or taken in ignorance of the facts. The
reformers were keen to cut down the paperwork as well as to improve the
quality of justice. Henceforth courts were to conduct proceedings orally and to
allow the accused to defend himself-through an advocate if the case were
heard above regimental level. The procurator, an official new to the military
domain, conducted the preliminary investigation and supervised the legality of
the trial. Only if he challenged the verdict, or if the accused appealed, was the
case to go for review. Efforts were made to give procurators legal training.so
There is evidence that they took their duties professionally. In 1878 one of
them stood up to a powerful official, saying: 'Your Excellency, you have no
power to alter a statute. '^81 But there was an acute shortage of qualified of-
ficials-in 1867 one post in 14 was unfilled-and the Military Justice College
at this time produced a mere 22 graduates a year.^82 Since the courts frequently
· bad to make do with. untrained officers, and old habits died hard, far too
many verdicts continued to be referred upwards.^83
The jurisdiction of tribunals at every level was now carefully defined. This
had the happy consequence of removing from their purview many civilians
who hitherto had been subject to military law: ex-soldiers, foresters, vagrants,
smugglers, and sometimes disobedient peasants.^84 Now men faced military
proceedings 'only for crimes constituting a direct breach of military service
duties'^85 -a formula which excluded, say, offences by off-duty reservists.
However, as always there was a loophole: military justice took precedence
over civilian 'in places under sole jurisdiction of the army authorities'. This
78 Bogdanovich, /st. ocherk, iv. 489-91; Tavastshern, in SVM xii. 385-425.
79 Bogdanovich, /st. ocherk, iv. 498-501; Afanas·yev, 'Distsiplinarnye bataliony', p. 127.
80 Bogdanovich, /st. ocherk, iv. 501-8; II PSZ xii. 43473 (9 Aug. 1866).
81 Mordvinov, 'lz zapisok', p. 857 (1878); for a similar case F. N. Platonov in IV 124 (1911),
p. 508; neither, however, involved soldiers' rights.
82 Bogdanovich, /st. ocherk, iv. 502, 505; iii. app. 54. About half that number passed through
another institution, the Military Judicial Academy, on which see [Bobrovskyl JO let spetsia/'noy
shkoly, pp. 56 ff.; II PSZ xliii. 45666 (30 Mar. 1868).
83 Bogdanovich, /st. ocherk, p. 511.
a.< Ibid., ii. 420; on this question sec LeDonne, 'Civilians'.
Bl Bogdanovich, /st. ocherk, iv. 484.
wang
(Wang)
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