page_title: Republic of Guria
section_title: Justice
hierarchical_section_title: Republic of Guria / History / Organization / Justice
caption_attribution_description: English: A popular tribunal in Ozurgeti, Georgia, in 1905
context_page_description: The Republic of Guria, or the Gurian Peasant Republic, was the name used by a 1905–06 insurrection that took place in the western Georgian region of Guria against the Russian Empire. While it directly arose from a revolt over land grazing rights in 1902, the roots of the movement dated back decades, drawing several issues facing the area's peasant population, including taxation, land ownership, and economic factors. It gained further traction through the efforts of Georgian social democrats, despite some reservations within their party over making common cause with a peasant movement, and grew further during the 1905 Russian Revolution.
  During its existence the Gurian Republic was effectively an autonomous region. It had its own system of government, which consisted of assemblies of villagers meeting and discussing issues. A unique form of justice, where trial attendees voted on sentences, was introduced. While the movement broke from imperial administration, it was not anti-Russian, desiring to remain within the Empire.
context_section_description: Justice was conducted in a popular fashion by the village assemblies. As Villari noted, the "corruption and inefficiency of the Russian courts of justice in Georgia was a byword among the people and constituted one of the chief grievances of the inhabitants, who constantly but fruitlessly demanded that they should be reformed." Thus when the movement first began, locals immediately established their own judiciary, ignoring the Russian courts. The local courts were prone to make grave mistakes, with many individuals going for entertainment or to pursue grudges against others. Decisions were made by a majority vote, and women were allowed to participate. 
  The death penalty was retained, but not used; instead, the most severe form of punishment was a boycott of an individual. This was considered a terrible sentence: one contemporary said that "everyone feared the boycott" as it meant "expulsion from social life, isolation from one's neighbourhood, [and] the people's enmity." In even more extreme cases, the courts could have individuals expelled from their village or town. Other methods were employed as well: Villari notes that in one case two peasants convicted of adultery forced to ride a donkey naked through the town while proclaiming their guilt and swearing to live a better life. The Tsarist police, effectively powerless, were unable to carry out any arrests. 
  Villari witnessed a trial where about 200 people gathered for the case. A merchant who had been convicted of adultery and sentenced to a boycott was appealing it. After he made his case, there was advocacy both for and against him, until a motion to withdraw the boycott passed with a simple majority vote.
  One of the great advances of Gurian Republic was the disappearance of robbery. Georgian newspaper Mogzauri (1905, # 1) wrote: "Thieving and other crimes have not been totally extinguished, but have almost completely disappeared. Punishments are, in most cases, rather psychological ones. The Kutaisi province, having been infamous for thieving and robbery, has been completely transformed now, after people ceased to rely on government organizations, and dealt with their own problems by themselves."
caption: A popular tribunal in Ozurgeti, 1905.
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