Enlightenment Ideas in Catherine's the Great Early Reforms of Investigative System: New Laws and Their Realization in Practice

Abstract

This article presents the results of a study of the decrees of Catherine the Great of 1763 “On Admonition of Those Who Will Come to Torture by Educated Priests, and on Preparation a Special Book for That” and “On the Procedure for Criminal Proceedings on Theft, Robbery and Keeping of the Fugitives and Criminals” aimed at reforming the criminal law system of the Russian Empire. The study was conducted on two levels: compliance of the decrees with the doctrine of the Enlightenment by comparative analysis of the text of the decrees and the provisions on criminal law of the treatise Montesquieu “The Spirit of Law” and the execution of decrees in practice. The second task is implemented on the basis of unpublished archival materials from the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts — the funds of the Sysknoy Prikaz (Investigative Prikaz) and the Moskovskaya Rozysknaya Expedicia (Moscow Investigative Expedition). By analyzing the records of ordinary criminal cases initiated on the fact of property crimes without the use of violence, it was studied how the investigation was transformed in accordance with the decrees of Catherine the Great. It is important to note that the analysis focuses not only on philosophical and legal thought, but also on how, through legislative implementation, it became possible to introduce complex ideas of Enlightenment thinkers into the practice of the judicial and investigative process, which is associated with lower social categories than educated people. The study showed that the decrees of 1763 that entered the everyday practice and allowed to initiate fundamental changes in the judicial and investigative system of the Russian Empire — their application was recorded as well as by quoting the decrees in extracts in cases, and they are also evidenced by the practices included in the judicial and investigative process.