Supreme Criminal Appeal Court of the Ukrainian SSR

Supreme Criminal Appeal Court of the Ukrainian SSR (Верховний касаційний суд УРСР; Verkhovnyi kasatsiinyi sud URSR). A Soviet judicial body established 16 April 1919 to review appeals against sentences passed by revolutionary tribunals. The appeal court was under the jurisdiction of the People's Commissariat of Justice and consisted of the chief judge and four members. It could annul the decisions of the tribunals and order retrials, or retry cases itself. In 1921 it was transformed into the Supreme Appeal Tribunal of the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee and shortly thereafter merged with the Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal of the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee to form the Unified Supreme Tribunal of the Ukrainian SSR, which at the end of 1922 was abolished and replaced by the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]