Starting from December 1991 till the end of 2004, in accordance with the law “On rehabilitation of persons having been subject to illegal retaliation” the Division of Rehabilitation was functioning in the Supreme Court. Its task was to review criminal cases and prepare materials for rehabilitation of those persons who were convicted under judgments of military tribunals or courts during the period of soviet occupation.
The Division of Rehabilitation studied the archive materials and drew more than 30 thousand conclusions regarding the persons who were subject to retaliation, issued rehabilitation certificates to about 12 250 persons, rehabilitation was declined to 2545 persons.
Almost since the very start, the Division of Rehabilitation was run by Biruta Puķe, for 14 years listening to tragic life stories, searching archive documents, requesting references from archives of different regions of Russia, most often – Krasnoyarsk and Magadan, as well as the archives of the Interior Ministries of the Komi ASSR and the Republic of Khazakhstan.
At the beginning if there were no arguments regarding rehabilitation, the employees of the Supreme Court prepared conclusions without reviewing cases anew. This was the only chance to give prompt answers to people, and the number of applications was enormous. When the consultants had a possibility to work in the archive, the conclusions were prepared also regarding all the other persons convicted in the case.
Later, in all the cases within the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court conclusions were prepared on all the persons who were subject to retaliation. If there was no application regarding a person, the court employees tried themselves to find the place of residence of the person who was subject to retaliation or his/her relatives to notify about the rehabilitation.
People usually were responsive, even excited as they themselves had not known what to do and where to look for documents.
The Division of Rehabilitation issued also various references to the persons who were subject to retaliation and their relatives – regarding seizure of property, places of imprisonment and deportation, participation in the national resistance movement, statement of the fact of death.
The law of April 27, 1995 “On determination of the status of a person having been subject to political retaliation regarding the victims of the communist and Nazi regimes” stipulates that the state provides for historical study of the fate of these persons. The documents prepared by the Division of Rehabilitation of the Supreme Court are included in the joint collection of documents by which it will be possible to evaluate the fate of people during the respective period of time.
