A people's court in the late
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
was a
court of first instance
A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accorda ...
which handled the majority of civil and criminal offenses, as well as certain
administrative law
Administrative law is the division of law that governs the activities of executive branch agencies of government. Administrative law concerns executive branch rule making (executive branch rules are generally referred to as " regulations"), ...
offenses.
The people's court handled cases by a collegium consisted of a people's judge and two people's assessors. The people's assessors had duties similar to jurors, but decided both any objections and the verdict along with the judge, unlike in most jury systems.
In early
Soviet Russia
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
and Soviet Union the term "people's court" was used in reference to any court in the new Soviet legal system which replaced the legal system of the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War ...
. At these times there were several levels of courts, according to the administrative division of the country: local, ''
okrug
An ''okrug, ; russian: о́круг, ókrug; sr, округ, okrug, ; uk, о́круг, о́kruh; be, акруга, akruha; pl, okręg; ab, оқрҿс; mhr, йырвел, '' is a type of administrative division in some Slavic states. Th ...
'', and ''
oblast
An oblast (; ; Cyrillic (in most languages, including Russian and Ukrainian): , Bulgarian: ) is a type of administrative division of Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Ukraine, as well as the Soviet Union and the Kingdo ...
'' people's courts.
"Decree about the Court No. 2"
February 15, 1918
See also
* Procurator General of the USSR
The Procurator General of the USSR (russian: Генеральный прокурор СССР, Generalnyi prokuror SSSR) was the highest functionary of the Office of the Public Procurator of the USSR, responsible for the whole system of offices ...
* Supreme Court of the USSR
* Ministry of Justice of the USSR
References
Soviet law
Defunct courts
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