Public Supervision

(police supervision). According to prerevolutionary legislation, public supervision was a measure to secure the appearance of a defendant, applied by investigative agencies (sometimes called special police supervision). It was also a principal or additional penalty that was applied according to a court sentence and determined according to the Code of Laws on Criminal Punishments of 1903. Public supervision might be imposed for life (for persons who had been exiled to distant places) or temporarily (for one to four years). In addition, public supervision in prerevolutionary Russia was an administrative measure, applied according to the Statute of 1882 on persons who were found to be “harmful to public peace.” In this sense, public supervision was used chiefly as a means for extrajudicial repression of persons suspected by the gendarmerie—the Okhranka (tsarist secret police)—of being members of revolutionary organizations.

The imposition of public supervision meant an essential restriction of the rights of the person under supervision: his residence permit was withdrawn and replaced by a special certificate, and he was excluded from government service and teaching jobs.

Public supervision under prerevolutionary legislation must not be confused with administrative supervision in the USSR over certain categories of persons discharged from places of detention, which was established by the decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of July 26, 1966, and June 12, 1970.