Magistrates' court (Russia)

The magistrates' courts (Russian: Мировой суд), an office held by a magistrate or justice of the peace (Мировой судья), is a court within the judiciary of Russia.

Magistrates' courts handle criminal cases where imprisonment is for less than three years such as petty hooliganism, public drunkenness, and serious traffic violations of a non-criminal nature, minor civil cases such as simple divorces, some property cases, disputes over land, and some labor cases, as well as some federal administrative law cases.

It consists of one magistrate or justice of the peace.

It was introduced in Russian Empire in 1864 as part of the judicial reform of Alexander II. It was based on the British justice of the peace. It was replaced by other offices after the Russian Revolution but reintroduced formally in Russia by the 1996 Constitutional Law on the Judicial System.

The regulations in the Russian Empire provided for establishment of local courts with justices of the peace to deal with minor offences, who could not impose sentence more than one year of imprisonment. Each justice of the peace was supposed to serve in a circuit one uyezd comprising several circuits. They were elected for three years by zemstvos. However, in many areas, there was not enough candidates who could meet the requirements for election, and in other areasm, local authorities hindered the process of election. In several western regions, justices of the peace were eventually appointed by the Minister of Justice. In 1889, the whole institution was abolished everywhere except for Moscow and St. Petersburg. The powers of justices of the peace were vested in local executive authorities. They were restored in 1912, but the monarchy was already about to collapse.

They judged minor criminal and civil cases. They were individually elected from the ranks of local self-government bodies, zemstvos in the rural areas and municipal dumas in the towns.

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