# The Marriage Laws of Soviet Russia/Appendix

APPENDIX TO SECTION 193
Instructions for the Examination of Mentally Defective Persons
1. Petitions for the examination of persons mentally defective and for the institution of a guardianship shall he presented to the Medical Department, or an office charged with the duties of the same, attached to the local Soviet of the place of residence of the persons to be examined.
2. The said petitions may be presented either by the relatives, guardians, or trustees of the person mentally defective or by the institution employing the said person, or by the party, union, or other organization of which the said person is a member, or by his neighbors.
3. The Medical Department upon the receipt of the petition requesting such an examination shall appoint a medical commission for the purposes thereof.
4. The said medical commission shall be presided over by the chief of the Medical Department or his assistant and shall consist of not less than three specialist physicians on the staff of the . ​Medical Department or three independent alienist physicians.
Note I. In case a sick person shall be under treatment in a special private or governmental institution, the Medical Commission shall include as a full member the physician of that institution.
Note II. The said Medical Commission shall include as full members, besides the persons mentioned in the present section, the physicians invited by the sick person or by the petitioners for the examination.
5. The Medical Department shall inform the following persons, who are required to be present, of the day, hour and place of the sitting of the Medical Commission: (a) the representative of the Medical Department of the local Soviet; (b) the local public judge selected by the local council of judges; (c) the petitioners for the examination.
6. The said examination shall be made in the building of the Medical Department, whereto the sick person shall be brought by his petitioners. In case it shall not be possible to bring the sick person to the building of the Medical Department, and the unwillingness of the said person to come shall be deemed an impossibility within the meaning of this section, the examination shall be made by the Medical Commission at the place of residence of the sick person and in the presence of all the persons mentioned in the preceding section.
Note. In case the said examination shall be made in a country district, the judicial ​representative elected by the council of public judges shall be substituted by the local judge.
7. The Medical Commission in determining the normality of the person under examination shall be entitled to use all the methods approved by medical science for the determination of insanity. The Medical Commission shall have the right in special cases when it shall appear impossible to come to a definite conclusion after the first examination to make a second examination within a certain period of time, or to place the person under examination in a special medical institution for supervision for a period deemed necessary by the Medical Commission.
8. Detailed minutes of the sittings. of the said Commission shall be kept and the results of the examinations shall be embodied in a report signed by all the members of the Medical Commission.
9. Guardianship shall be instituted over the person and the property of a person found to be insane by the Medical Commission and the Medical Department shall inform the organ of guardianship thereof.
Note. The organ of guardianship shall make an announcement of the. institution of the guardianship in the local newspapers designated for the publication of the same.
10. A petition for the reexamination of the insane person with the view of declaring him to be sane may be presented either by the persons mentioned in Section 2 of the present instructions, or ​by the medical institution where the sick person has been placed for treatment or by the sick person himself.
11. The re-examination of the insane person with the view of ascertaining his recovery shall be made in accordance with the rules prescribed by sections 1–8 of the present instructions.
12. On the recovery of the sick person, the Medical Department shall inform the organ of guardianship of the termination of the guardianship.
13. The costs incurred in the examination of an insane person and the institution of a guardianship shall be borne by the said person, provided that in cases when the latter is indigent the costs shall be borne by the State in the budget of the Medical Department.
Note. The cost incurred by the examination of a person who shall be found by the said examination to be sane shall be borne by the petitioners for the examination.
14. Persons deliberately giving false testimony with a view to obtaining a declaration of a person's insanity, shall be held guilty of perjury.
15. The decision of the Medical Commission declaring a person insane may be appealed from within one month from the date thereof to the Local People's Court of the place of residence of the person declared insane. It shall be within the discretion of the said court either to dismiss the said appeal, or to order the Medical Department to re-examine the person in question by a new medical commission in the presence of the People's Court.
​16. No appeal shall lie from the decisions of the Local People's Court pertaining to appeals against the decrees of the said Medical Commission.
(Signed)For the All-Russian Central Executive Committee,
J. Sverdlov, Chairman,
V. A. Avanesov, Secretary.