Yu.M. Lukin, 

Senior Lecturer of the Department of History and Theory of State and Law 

of law faculty of Kazan Federal University,  

Attorney 

This review article describes the General characteristics and the place of the rural municipality court’s code of the Baltic provinces of the Russian Empire. Township (peasant) courts quite fall under the concept of the magistrate: they had very limited jurisdiction (minor civil and criminal cases) and used simplified procedures. From the explanations of the Senate followed that case is recognized triable to the rural municipality court in the presence of three conditions: 1) the offence must be committed by persons belonging to the peasant class; 2) the misconduct must have been committed within the countryside; 3) the offence should not exceed the limits of jurisdiction of township court. The case is recognized triable to the rural municipality court, if the offense committed by the peasants focused on community or private life. All other offenses involving state and public interests, concerning all classes, subject to the jurisdiction of justices of the magistrates or general justice. Practice of the actions of local judicial seats showed that claims with small value of the claim or proceedings on minor offences was accompanied by the same complex, confusing, not easy to find out circumstances, like lawsuits and crimes under the jurisdiction of the General court, and the adoption of a case and its future direction demanded of the magistrate, to eliminate arbitrariness, the preservation of order and the security of justice, the execution of most of those forms of justice that in these categories of cases were established only for the common judicial seats. 

Keywords: history of civil procedure; the rural municipality court’s code of the Baltic provinces of the Russian Empire.