Deanery (jurisprudence)

The term "deanery" in the sense of the police concept was known in Russia in the XVII century . Various instructions given to the peculiar police authorities and traveled around their heads to protect the city were gathered together and published (immediately after the Code of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in April 1649 ) under the name " Order of the City Deanery ." This mandate determined the order of day and night detours in Moscow to protect the city from fires and all theft; when we circled around the head, the clerk consisted of five clerks , who were obliged to paint the guards, the guards, who had to conduct round-trip service from ten yards per person, and to appoint the necessary number of archers to oversee the order (1st P. C. Z. 6).

When the term “ police ” came into use under Peter I , the word deanery did not disappear: on the contrary, it continued to mean the concept of the whole policeman.

The “ Establishment of Provinces ” by Catherine II ( November 7, 1775) by the police meant: protection of deanery, good moral order and order, monitoring the execution of what is prescribed by law and enforcing decisions of the highest public places. And the Charter , issued for the leadership of the county institution created by the "Establishment of Provinces" (Lower Zemsky Court ) and city police, was directly called the Deanery Charter , or the police.

Deanery Charter

The first part of it (published on April 8, 1872) determined in detail the composition of the city police and gave a mandate for its activities. The remaining, alleged parts of this Charter have not been issued.

Regarding the composition of the city police in this charter, they sought to initiate the participation of an elected public element on the same basis as the participation of the nobility and partly rural inhabitants in managing the zemstvo police in the establishment of provinces for the zemstvo police. However, for cities, the participation of public forces in the police department was allowed to a lesser extent compared with the county.

Police Office, or Deanery Office

In each city, under the Charter of the Deanery, the police department was entrusted to the police department or the Deanery Board. The management was composed of:

• in capitals - under the chairmanship of Chief Police Officer of the Police Chief, bailiffs of civil and criminal cases and two ratmans ;
• in other cities, the chairmanship was entrusted to the police chief or city manager.

Under the authority of the Deanery Directorate, the direct police department was entrusted to private bailiffs, quarterly warders with lieutenants, and police guards. By establishing the Deanery Office, the city police were entrusted with all the affairs of the executive police, namely: the enforcement of laws and decisions of public places, monitoring the protection of deanery, goodwill and order. This meant: monitoring the implementation of trade rules, passport laws, working condition of communication lines and bridges, monitoring the preservation of church deanery, permitted societies, prosecuting secret and illegal societies, prosecuting prohibited games, watching lotteries, public performances, warning immorality.

Together with these police officers, the Deanery Office was provided with some legal cases , namely civil ones, litigating up to 20 rubles, and of criminal cases, investigation of crimes and dispatch of a court for thefts and fraud cases below 20 rubles.

By entrusting such important and extensive affairs to the Deanery Council, the Empress gave the Council the order in which she wished to indicate to her new police bodies the general guidelines that they should keep while intruding on public and private relations. The charter recommended three principles:

• rules of good morality, the implementation of which is desirable in relations between people;
• rules of social obligations, indicating moral obligations between spouses, parents and children;
• qualities defined for the deanery of the authorities and the rules of his position (the conditions and virtues necessary for the employee were listed: common sense, good will, honesty, selflessness, a right and sound court for every state, etc.).

These moral principles, exhibited as a guide to the police in their relations with private individuals, and subsequently, when compiling the Code of Laws , were entered into the Code and divided into separate parts in the form of positive laws. In the X volume, for example, between the laws that determined the rights and obligations of the matrimony, the words of the Deanery Charter about the relationship between husband and wife were placed. In the third volume, in the laws defining the duties of employees, the qualities of employees indicated in it were placed from the Deanery's Charter: sound mind, goodwill, etc.

The deanery’s charter, giving the police authorities extensive rights in relation to the inhabitants, among other things, the right to imprisonment, arrest, wanted to prevent possible arbitrariness by the police by the following decree: every morning, private bailiffs were obliged to report to the Deanery on all persons arrested at night, and the Government, before other cases, had to decide on those arrested: without leaving the presence, release the detained unjustly or for unimportant misconduct, and those detained for misconduct transmit the steps to court.

Despite some very good decisions, the Charter of the Deanery generally contained principles that should have given rise to formalism and endless correspondence, burdening citizens with unnecessary interference and abuse under the conditions of that time. In addition to purely police orders, criminal acts were also placed in the Charter of the Deanery. Namely, an article entitled prohibition calculates what acts should be recognized as punishable (Articles 190-232). Most of these articles were subsequently included, when compiling the Code, in the “Charter for the Prevention and Suppression of Crimes”, which was placed in Volume XIV.

As for the Governor of the Deanery, then closed in the capitals under Emperor Paul I as a result of the new institution created by him - city government, or the town hall, the Deanery councils were restored under Emperor Alexander I , but on different grounds in different cities.

In St. Petersburg, the restored Deanery Directorate was assigned, together with Chief Police Officer, to the General Police Department (the main thing was entrusted to the Governor-General , and the Administration was subordinated to the city units and blocks). Then the Deanery Office was divided into 2 departments, each had a special chairman, and a comrade of the provincial prosecutor was appointed to the Board.

In Moscow, the restored Deanery Directorate, chaired by the Chief Police Officer, was composed of the police chief, civil and criminal bailiffs, and two ratmans .

In other cities of the Directorate, deaneries were not restored, but limited to a less sophisticated institution of police presence. With the introduction of judicial institutions and subsequent reforms of the executive police, the existence of the Office of the Deanery was recognized as unnecessary: ​​in St. Petersburg it was closed in 1877; The Moscow Government was abolished in 1881 with the introduction of a new provision on the Moscow police on May 5, 1881.

• Moscow Deanery Office

• Deanery // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Deanery Office // Ulyanovsk - Frankfort. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1977. - ( Great Soviet Encyclopedia : [in 30 vols.] / Ch. Ed. A. M. Prokhorov ; 1969-1978, vol. 27).