Fishing industry as a source of financing for the first stage of the judicial reform of 1864 in the Astrakhan region

Annotation

The article shows the difficulties in preparing for the introduction of the Judicial Statutes of 1864 in the Astrakhan province in the last quarter of the 19th century. The absence of an agricultural element in the province hindered the implementation of zemstvo reform, which in turn delayed judicial reform, since it was the zemstvos that had to maintain the magistrates' courts. The high level of development of commodity-money relations, the development of entrepreneurial activity and the rapid growth in the field of fishing in the post-reform period required the early introduction of fast and fair justice. The article analyzes the role of fishing in Astrakhan province in the context of financial flows directed to the maintenance of world justice in the last quarter of the 19th century, in order to identify the relationship between the economic activity of the region and the functioning of the new judicial system. Based on legislative documents and office materials, the author concludes that the profitability potential of fishing has become a key factor in accelerating the pace of preparation and implementation of the first stage of the judicial reform of 1864 in Astrakhan province – the introduction of the institute of the World Court. For the first time, the practice of taxation of fishing waters as immovable property was applied by establishing the equivalence of the amount of taxation of fishing with an additional fee to the amount of taxation with the collection of audit souls. The initiative of the provincial authorities to re-evaluate the profitability of fishing waters allowed not only to increase the amount of collection from state-owned and privately owned waters to cover the costs of the state treasury for the maintenance of justice of the peace, but also to ensure the opening of new judicial magistrates in the future and an increase in the number of district magistrates, which increased the efficiency of the post-reform judicial system in the region.

Keywords

• fishing industry
• fishing
• world justice
• world court
• judicial reform of 1864
• judicial fee
• zemstvo fee
• provincial duties
• Ministry of Justice
• Astrakhan province
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