Abstract
The purpose of the article is to provide a comprehensive historical and legal analysis of the formation and functioning of the magistrate personnel in Right - Bank Ukraine, based on materials from the Volhynian Governorate in 1831 – 1864. Drawing upon legal acts and service records ( formular lists ) in the context of imperial policies aimed at the unification and centralization of judicial power, the study examines this cadre. The methodological basis of the study rests on the principles of historicism and scientific objectivity, alongside historical - legal, prosopographical, and comparative analyses of regulatory acts, service records, and administrative documentation of magistrates and district courts. The work employs systematic and comparative approaches, which enabled the reconstruction of a sociological portrait of elected and appointed magistrate officials and a comparative characterization of magistrate and district court staffing systems. The scientific novelty lies in a comprehensive historical and legal analysis of the legal status, staffing mechanisms, confessional balance, and social characteristics of the magistrate corps based on regulatory legal acts and service records. This approach allows for an understanding of magistrates as instruments of imperial integration of the urban population and confessional policy, while also elucidating the reasons for their abolition on the eve of the Judicial Reform of 1864. Conclusions. The study shows that magistrates functioned as hybrid institutions with formal self - government and real administrative control exercised through the confirmation of elected officials and the appointment of secretaries. Personnel policy was based on a confessional balance (between Christians and Jews) with the targeted involvement of Orthodox townspeople ( meshchane ) and a dualistic structure: elected, unpaid officials from among the townspeople and merchants, and appointed, paid secretaries and clerks ( kantseliarysty ) from the nobility. An analysis of service records revealed limited education, lack of property, practical experience, and low salaries of clerks. Systemic problems (limited personnel reserve, unprofessionalism, bureaucratic procedures, underfunding, corruption) and comparisons with district ( uezd ) courts demonstrated the inefficiency of the magistrate model.