RUSSIAN JUSTICE.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 526, 5 June 1909, Page 5

RUSSIAN JUSTICE.

THE TJNCONTBqLLEp POWER OF, THE ','• .COUHTS4IAimAL, ■; -,' '•. . • OVERCROWDING OF THE GAOLS! \dz TH.zcuArit-iMte.vi association- coi'fitiaiiT.l '..'■.■■■■'.l-'- ■■ r Bt,iPetersburg, June' 3;, '■' Priiico Kropotkin states .that'; Russian prisons, officially reported to, be capable of holding 90,000 persons, now hold: 181,000. , The Duma has rejected a /Bill -abolishing on tho, ground that courts-martial can order executions outside the Duma's competence. ' '• ■''•'-,■ UNCHECKED POWER OF LIFE AND ' ■.■',. .:'■ ■:■■: --DEATH.;: .' , v, J-,. .:' 'In'a letter to-,"The...Times," Prince Kropotkin' quotes newspaper figures to show ■ that in ,Mayi'-1908, executions went oh nt;-the rate! of from 1 to. 15, daily, and for the, first three months of 1808. the figures were .between '60 and -90 per month. As to SI.. Stolypin'syassertion that only 11,000 persons had .been exiled by ministrative order,' that is absolutely misleading, as it refers to only one category of exile, many thousands having been'banished by provinoial Prince ICropotkin adds:— ■ "We thus have , something like: 1003 persons executed last year by the Courts-martial, aftor only" a' eetnblanoe of trial,. and; about 27,000 persons oxileii without any semblance of trial. '.'•'.. .. To this we can add now, thanks to Mr. Stead,. a precious avowal of the two, highest functionaries of Russia. Tho local Governors have a right equivalent to tho right of life and .death . over tho inhabitants of their respective provincos, and the Adjoint of the Prime Minister recognises publicly that he and the Prime Minister nave no control over suoh a power—have not even information as to how it is exeroisedl" - '•' ■•• .■ ; .-' ; -