Serov, D.O. Legislative process in Russia in first quarter of XVIII century: traditions and innovations

Abstract: The article is devoted to the issue of combination of archaic and innovative specific features in the Russian legislative process at the time of the reforms of Tsar Per the Great. It is established that the tradition was followed insomuch as the legislator retained the idea that the key segment of the Russian legislative system should be one codified act. Novel Ideas in the Russian legislative process in the first quarter of XVIII century included 1) changes in the order of official publication of normative acts, which were duplicated by typographic means; 2) formation of incorporation as a type of legislative systematization; 3) large-scale reception of the Western European legal institutions (especially Swedish); 4) the large-scale involvement of the foreign specialist in the Russian service to the legislative drafting. The article for the first time provides the data on the number of normative acts, which were made public by typographic means in 1714-1725, and of incorporated reports, which were published in 1718-1725. The author singles out and characterizes three scenarios for the adoption of foreign legal experience in the law-making process In Russia of the first quarter of XVIII century: 1) direct transfer of the foreign legal institution into the Russian system with minimal adaptation; 2) in-depth adaptation of foreign specimen to the Russian conditions, attempts to synthesize foreign and Russian legal institutions; 3) superficial fragmented borrowing of foreign legal institutions (an extreme example of this scenario was the phenomenon of using foreign terminology for the newly-formed Russian institutions, while these institutions were not analogous to any foreign institutions). Much attention is paid in the article to the characteristic features of the second scenario, taking the process of reception of the principle of structural and functional separation of judicial bodies from administrative bodies.

Keywords: