Novgorod Judicial Charter

The Novgorod Judicial Charter was drawn up in 1440 and supplemented in 1471. It is believed that its initial composition was determined at the Novgorod veche, during the war of Novgorod with the Grand Duke Vasily Vasilyevich ^[1] . According to I. D. Belyaev, the letter, written at the veche, was approved by the cross kissing shortly after the Yazhelbitsky peace (1456), and according to the Korostyn treaty (1471), Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich ordered to rewrite it in his name ^[2] .

Legal sources of the Novgorod Judicial Charter are separate articles of the Russian Truth and local Novgorod law of an earlier origin.

The Novgorod Judicial Charter is dedicated to the judicial system and legal proceedings in Veliky Novgorod . M.F. Vladimirsky-Budanov singled out 42 articles in it. The letter defines:

• various court cases
• Decisions:
  • about the plaintiff and his representative,
  • about the defendant and his representative,
  • about witnesses
  • court order
  • on court terms
  • court fees, also indicating the amount of court fees,
• competencies:
  • court of the archbishop,
  • Posadnik
  • thousand
  • Grand Duke Viceroy
  • Tiuna

considers various judicial incidents and features of land litigation.

The Novgorod Judicial Charter reflected the interests of the ruling class of Novgorod (boyars, living people and its other representatives), as well as the policy of Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich to limit the arbitrariness of Novgorod boyars in favor of the princely power (for example, a 50-ruble fine from a boyar in case of libel against judges) .

By the nature and significance of the Novgorod Judicial Charter is similar to the Pskov Judicial Charter and the court orders of North-Eastern Russia , the differences are mainly in the procedure of legal proceedings.

The Novgorod Judicial Charter served as one of the sources of the Belozersky Statutory Charter (1488) and Sudebnik (1497) .

In the Manuscript Department of the Russian National Library there is a handwritten collection 0-IV-No. 14, which is unique in that the documents collected in it (with the exception of the Korostyn Agreement) have reached us only in this collection, without preserving either the originals or other copies. As part of this collection - Novgorod Judicial Charter (l. 51-54 about.) ^[3]

Judicial rights were possessed by all bodies of power and administration: the veche, the posadnik, the thousand, the prince, the boyar council, the archbishop, the sotsky, the headman. Merchant and guild corporations (“ fraternities ”) were vested with judicial powers. Judicial ranks were clerks, bailiffs, "recruits", scribes, inter-country, henchmen, etc.

Structurally, the court was divided into councils. A court was convened in Novgorod three times a week: on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and retreats were organized in Novgorod cities. Cases in court were to be decided on time and regularly reported to the archbishop.

The court was church or princely, at which respectively the archbishop or prince was present. The court was adversarial. Pre-litigating parties were invited to hire storytellers who tried to reconcile the plaintiff and defendant in pre-trial order. If reconciliation was achieved, judicial letters were issued that were not subject to appeal and the decision was considered final. If one of the parties did not agree to judicial reconciliation, a court was convened. The clerk present at the trial “kissed the cross” to accurately execute the court decision. Costs and fees were paid by the losing party, who could appeal this decision in a church court. As a relic, there was also the custom of a judicial duel (“field”).

The prince could not adjudicate without a posadnik; the latter carried out the trial together with the princely governor, who was given the right to review the case. The judicial cooperation of the posadnik and the governor was expressed in the activities of their representatives - tyuns: the latter, each individually in the presence of representatives of the disputing parties (bailiffs) examined the case, but did not solve it completely.

After that, the case was transferred to the higher court for a report (final decision) or for a ruling (for review). In the higher court, the governor and posadnik sat with 10 jurors (from the boyars and living people). These jurors constituted a permanent judicial panel of rapporteurs who regularly gathered in the courtyard of the archbishop's house.

Disputes between a church man and a layman were handled by a city judge along with the governor of the archbishop. The princely people were judged by the city and princely boyars in the territory of the residence of the prince (fortification), the prince himself held the hearing in these cases in the presence of a posadnik. The thousandth was entrusted with the leadership of the commercial court and the analysis of cases of a police nature (violation of public order, measures and weights, etc.), with the participation of the posadnik, he examined the disputes of Novgorod and foreign merchants.

The disputes of merchants and craftsmen were examined by cooperative public courts - courts of elders and brotherhoods.

• Russian law
• Pskov Judicial Charter