The Crisis of the Pre-Reform Judicial System of the Russian Empire in the Context of the Class System and Serfdom

The article is devoted to an important prerequisite for the judicial reform of 1864, namely the absence of the principle of equality of all before the law and the court. The subject of the study is the restriction of access to justice of the population associated with the gradual formation of the class system and the enslavement of peasants. The purpose of the work is to identify the significant features of the judicial system of the pre-reform period that hampered the population’s access to justice. To write the article, the dialectical, historical and legal methods, the method of analysis and synthesis, and the formal legal research method were used. Regulatory legal acts and scientific literature of the pre-revolutionary and modern periods are analyzed. The author argues that the restriction of the rights of serfs, the administration of justice by landlords against them, and the existence of estate courts reflected the qualities of the judicial system’s insolvency. The “old court” reached its culmination in the 18th century. The lack of equality of all before the law and the court in the pre-reform court in a country with an absolute monarchy created many additional unresolved issues that hindered the development of the judicial system as a whole. This fact, as well as the class character of society, gave rise to a sluggish estate judicial system, limited the rights of the lower classes and provided the permissiveness of the upper class. The thesis is substantiated that the abolition of serfdom and the restructuring of the court system during the progressive Judicial reform of 1864 contributed to the convergence of the legal status of different groups of society before the law and the court, introduced liberal principles and institutions into the judicial system.