minors and the insane. This body introduced something akin to the concept of
habeas corpus to Russian law in allowing investigation of complaints of false arrest
and imprisonment. It oversaw conflict resolution by arbitration between the
parties, it addressed cases of humanitarian concern, and dealt with other cases
outside normal courts, including witchcraft (treated secularly as superstition or
fraud, no longer a religious crime). Also innovative was a Board of Social Welfare
with elected representatives of local estates. Funded by the government, it operated
as a sort of lending bank for major projects; it was charged with providing each
town and major village with welfare services, such as primary schools; major towns
were also to have hospitals; gubernia capitals were to create almshouses, work-
houses, orphanages, and prisons as well.
At the district level there was to be a treasury and two lower courts—one for
nobles and peasants under their jurisdiction (consisting of three nobles elected
locally) and for taxed groups a lower court (rasprava) with four assessors. State
peasants, Cossacks, or native peoples elected four assessors from villages, who could
be landowners or peasants; the court was presided over by a judge appointed by the
gubernia board. Governors worked tofind appointees with local administrative
experience and supplied the courts with translators; they were attentive to the
complex ethnic and religious composition of their communities. In Orenburg
province, for example, dozens of Bashkirs, Mordva, Chuvash, Cheremisy/Mari,
and other minorities were regularly elected to the lower courts, as the reform
intended.
For policing, there was no central apparatus, before or after the reforms. The
1775 reforms were an improvement on the existing model, where the governor and
his meager garrison relied on local forces to police, arrest, imprison, and otherwise
maintain public order and welfare. The 1775 reforms introduced at the district
level a lower land“court”(not a judicial body) with an appointed land captain
(zemskii ispravnik) and two assessors elected from local nobility (joined with two
assessors elected by the community from state peasants, Cossacks, or native
groups). This board served as the executive arm of gubernia administration,
conducting investigations, carrying out judicial decisions, collecting tax arrears,
arresting criminals. This difficult job, similar to the posses for criminal affairs in
Muscovite times, provided positions and income for poor local noblemen who, as
in Muscovite times, mobilized estate stewards and village representatives (hundred-
men and tensmen) for help. The Russian countryside was nevertheless inadequately
policed. Some major towns could call upon regiments of regular troops, and fortress
towns had garrison troops, but the 1775 reforms supplemented these with local
detachments (shtatnye komandy) at the gubernia and district level.
For towns, the reform created magistracies composed of merchant and artisan
population in gubernia and district capitals. The magistracy in each gubernia
capital heard appeals from town courts and channeled further appeals to the
noble-controlled judicial chambers. At each level magistracies consisted of a panel
of two burgomasters and fourratmany, elected for three years by an assembly of
townsmen and confirmed by the governor. Assemblies of townsmen also elected
board members to the Equity Court. All these urban representatives were paid from
Army and Administration 309