Sobornoye Ulozheniye
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The Sobornoe Ulozhenie (Russian: Соборное уложение, IPA:
The code consolidated Russia's slaves and free peasants into a new
The law code conceded many demands that were raised in the preceding decades, it satisfied the nobility's demand to retrieve runaway serfs without a time-limit, and which allowed the 'serf bondage to the soil' to later evolve into a far more comprehensive serfdom system in the 18th century. Further, the code also forbade boyars in accepting taxpayers as bondsmen. It attacked the influence of the clergy by refusing them to accept landed estates and reduced the competence of the ecclesiastical courts.[1]
The causes of promulgation
As the
Years | edicts |
1550–1600 | 83 |
1601–1610 | 17 |
1611–1620 | 97 |
1621–1630 | 90 |
1631–1640 | 98 |
1641–1648 | 63 |
In the period of 1550-1610 only 100 edicts were issued, but in the years 1611-1648 the number of edicts was 348. In total there were 448 edicts. This led to the situation in the Russian state that many edicts were not only obsolete, but sometimes contradicted each other.
This chaos was contributed to by the scattering of normative acts throughout different state institutes (traditionally new edicts were made on demand of some prikaz, and after their promulgation were attached to an edict book of this prikaz). There was also an absence of coordination in law application: a new article in this book was often known only to the statesmen of the given prikaz. Also, the casual character of legal rules was becoming inefficient. The legislators now sought to regulate legal rules, that is, to pass on to a normative interpretation of legal rules.
The
Lawmaking
A special committee headed by Prince Nikita Odoyevsky was created to draft the new legal code. Members of the committee included Prince Semyon Prozorovsky, an Okolnichy Prince (one of highest ranks of boyars in old Russia), Fyodor Volkonsky, as well as the scribes Gavrila Leontyev and Fyodor Griboyedov. At that time, the practical job of the Zemsky Sobor began.
The Zemsky Sobor was intended to consider the bill of Ulozhenie. It had many members, including representatives of
Later, a copy of the scroll was transcribed in book format. From this book, the Ulozhenie was reprinted twice in 1649, with 1200 copies made each time. The Sobornoe Ulozhenie of 1649 is considered a new stage in the development of Russian jurisprudence.
All Sobor members endorsed handwritten copies of the Ulozhenie with their signatures, and these copies were then distributed to all state offices (prikazes) in Moscow as a guide for policy and law.
Elected people sent their own amendments and additions to the Duma as petitions of Zemstvo. Some of these were enacted in cooperation with the elected officials, the Duma and the Tsar.
Vasily Klyuchevsky singles out several technical stages at process of lawmaking of Ulozhenie:
- Codification — (work with sources, editing) by the committee headed by Prince Odoevskii.
- Conference — bringing up petition for discussion.
- Revision — revision and editing of bills by Duma and Tsar.
- Legislative decision — a common decision about one or another article of the Ulozhenie.
- Hand signing — signing of code of laws unanimously by members of the Sobor.
The Sobornoe Ulozhenie represents the first attempt by Russian legislators to form system of norms and classify them by areas of law. Significant attention was given to procedural law.
Sources of Ulozhenie
The sources of the Sobornoe Ulozhenie originated both from Russian and international law.
- Books of orders of prikazes - from the moment of the appearance of a prikaz, the current law in the corresponding area of law was fixed in accordance with that prikaz
- Sudebnik of 1497 and Sudebnik by Ivan IV.
- Statutes of Lithuania (1588) had been used as model (pattern) of legal technicality
- Petitions
References
- ISBN 978-0-19-956041-7.