The Legal Institute of the «Trace Persecution» in the «Kop» Legal Proceedings on the Ukrainian Lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

Andrii Hurbyk
Candidate of Historical Sciences (Ph.D. in History), Senior Research Fellow,
Institute of History of Ukraine of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Ukraine, Kyiv),
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.15407/ul2013.02.096

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Abstract

In article the order of activity of «kop» court and legal institute «trace persecution» during the 15th – 17th centuries on the Ukrainian lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania is considered. People’s assemblies of inhabitants of judicial vicinities for carrying out «kop’s» legal proceedings on the Ukrainian lands as a part of Grand Duchy of Lithuania (henceforce – the GDL) met in documentary sources of the 15th – 16th centuries under different names: «veche», «right», «[kopa]», «[kupa]», «[sik]», «trace». The specified terms designated both complete judicial institute, and its separate right-investigative functions. Especially important role at the general structure of kop’s legal proceedings was played by legal institute fulfilled by eyelids «trace persecution» which, first of all, designated carrying out search and prosecution of the criminal on traces of crime. The specified legal institute provided not only independent judicial activity, but also making a part/stage of the wider public / kop’s legal proceeding. Institute of persecution of a trace as norm of a common law, since Kiev Rus’ passed in Ukraine of the 15th – 17th centuries a difficult way of evolution. Its codification by all Statutes of the GDL (1529, 1566, 1588) was the certificate widely an existing and great value of this norm of a common law. The similar legal duty of fellow citizens to help to pursue a trace in the middle Ages occurred also at Czechs, Poles, and in the right of other people. Therefore it is lawful to draw a conclusion that the specified norm of the Ukrainian common law, despite the originality, had universal European character.

 

Keywords

«Kop» court, «trace persecution», legal proceeding, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

 

Archives

Российская национальная библиотека. Отдел рукописей [Russian National Library. Department of Manuscripts].
Российский государственный исторический архив [Russian State Historical Archive].
Центральний державний історичний архів України, м. Київ [The Ukraine State Historical Archive in Kyiv].

 

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