People’s court

People’s court (гародний суд; narodnyi sud). The lowest level of the court system in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Union of Societ Socialist Republics in general, and the court of first instance for a raion or city. Such courts tried almost all civil and criminal cases, except for very complex civil matters or grave crimes, and some administrative cases. They consisted of one people’s judge and two people’s assessors. Their decisions could be appealed to an oblast court.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]