Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR

Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR (Верховний суд Української РСР; Verkhovnyi sud Ukrainskoi RSR). The highest court in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, established on 16 December 1922. It consisted of the chief justice, the deputies of the chief justice, several members, and people’s assessors, who were elected to a five-year term by the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR (in fact by its presidium). The court dealt with exceptionally grave criminal cases, administrative crimes of senior officials, and civil suits between state institutions of republican stature; reviewed the decisions of lower courts; and oversaw the operation of the court system. It was divided into two collegia, the criminal and the civil, whose decisions were reviewed by the court’s presidium. Decisions of the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR could be appealed to the Supreme Court of the USSR.

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