The Senate of Finland (Swedish: Senaten för Finland; Finnish: Suomen senaatti) combined the functions of cabinet and supreme court in the Grand Duchy of Finland and, from 1917, in independent Finland. It was established in 1809 as the Governing Council of the Grand Duchy of Finland (Regeringskonseljen för Storfurstendömet Finland), renamed the Imperial Senate of Finland (Kejserliga senaten för Finland) in 1816, and dissolved in 1918.
The Senate was the government in Finland of the Russian emperor, who as the country's ruler bore the title of Grand Duke. It was divided into two divisions: the Judicial Division was the country's supreme court, while the Economic Division was its government and conducted the general administration through its expeditions, the forerunners of the ministries. The Governor-General was formally its chairman, but he seldom exercised the office—not least because the Senate deliberated in Swedish—and from 1822 each division was in practice led by a vice-chairman of its own. The vice-chairman of the Economic Division was the country's unofficial prime minister, and until the end of the 1890s he also took the chair when the two divisions sat together. The senators, as the members were called from 1857, were appointed by the emperor for three years at a time and answered to him alone; there was no parliamentary responsibility to the Diet until 1917.
After the February Revolution of 1917 the senators of the Economic Division were made answerable to the Diet, and on 6 December that year Pehr Evind Svinhufvud's senate declared the country independent. In 1918 the Judicial Division was reconstituted as the Supreme Court and a new Supreme Administrative Court took over the administrative appeals previously decided in the Economic Division, and on 27 November of that year the Senate was renamed the Government, its expeditions becoming ministries and its senators ministers.
When Finland was joined to Russia in 1809, a new central administration had to be created in the country. Under Swedish rule the central administration had been located in Stockholm, while only the provincial and local administration lay in Finland. In the Treaty of Fredrikshamn of the same year Alexander I was styled, among much else, "Grand Duke of Smolensk, Lithuania, Volhynia, Podolia and Finland"; Meinander cites this long list of titles as evidence that the emperor did not intend the Grand Duchy to hold a specially autonomous position. Much of the Swedish administrative practice continued to apply in the Grand Duchy, which was joined to the empire but never integrated into it.
When Göran Magnus Sprengtporten was appointed Governor-General in December 1808, he drew up a proposal for a Finnish governing council that was unambiguously subordinate to his own office. Sprengtporten was replaced in the summer of 1809 by General Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly, who had previously opposed a separate Finnish council but as Governor-General came to see the advantage of administering the country through one. The regulations for the council were drafted ahead of the Diet of Porvoo by a Finnish committee led by the bishop of Turku, Jakob Tengström, and were confirmed by the emperor in August 1809.
The regulations showed the clear influence of the Russian minister Mikhail Speransky and contained two arrangements that shifted power from the Governor-General to the council. Speransky had already been given the task in 1808 of presenting Finnish affairs to the emperor directly, bypassing the Governor-General, and he ensured that this arrangement was written into the regulations; when his workload grew too heavy, a separate Finnish office of state secretary—later the Minister–State Secretary—was established in 1811. The Governor-General was further denied a vote in civil matters, which covered a large part of the country's administration. This division of labour was reinforced in 1812 by a separate instruction for the office of Governor-General.
Under the regulations the council consisted of fourteen members appointed by the emperor, with the Governor-General as its chairman. It was divided into a Judicial Division, responsible for the administration of justice, and an Economic Division, which handled civil government and the general economy; the latter was subdivided into five expeditions, or administrative departments—the Chancellery, Finance, Chamber and Accounts, Military and Ecclesiastical Expeditions. The council worked under the supervision of the Procurator.
In 1816, Alexander renamed the body the Senate to demonstrate that it was equal to rather than inferior to its Russian equivalent. The institution bore three formal names during its existence: the Governing Council of the Grand Duchy of Finland (Regeringskonseljen för Storfurstendömet Finland) in 1809–1816, the Imperial Senate of Finland (Kejserliga senaten för Finland) in 1816–1917, and the Senate of Finland (Senaten för Finland) in 1918.
The Senate initially sat in Turku. Helsinki was declared the capital of the Grand Duchy by imperial rescript in 1812, but the decision stipulated that the Governor-General and the Senate were to remain in Turku until public buildings had been erected for them. The Senate was nonetheless moved to Helsinki by imperial proclamation in 1817, and its work there began on 1 October 1819. Construction of the Senate House, designed by Carl Ludvig Engel on the eastern side of Senate Square, had begun in 1818; the Senate Square wing was first used in 1822, and the block was not enclosed until 1853.
Organisation and working methods
The Senate consisted of two divisions: the Judicial Division for court matters and the Economic Division for general administration. It was thus at once the country's government and its supreme court—two tasks that in independent Finland came to be carried out by separate institutions. The Economic Division was in turn divided into expeditions, each headed by a senator; their number varied between five and nine, and in 1918 they were reconstituted as the country's ministries. The Judicial Division had no subordinate expeditions. The Senate had oversight of the provincial and district administration, the courts of appeal, the Supreme Court Martial, the consistories and the central agencies as these came into being.
The members, called senators from 1857 and numbering at least ten in each division, were appointed for three years at a time by the emperor, who also appointed the vice-chairmen of the divisions. Appointment was made through a senate octroi, an imperial warrant renewed every three years.
The Senate met partly in plenum with both divisions together, partly by division and by section within a division. Matters to be laid before the Diet were dealt with in plenum, as were certain other important questions; if the majority of the Senate in plenum opposed the Governor-General's view, the final decision rested with the emperor. In routine matters the Senate decided in the emperor's name, and only weightier matters were referred to him personally. The Senate had no parliamentary responsibility to the Diet; senators answered to the emperor alone.
As the grand duke's deputy, the Governor-General was the Senate's chairman, but he seldom took part in the preparatory handling of business. According to Max Engman he seldom exercised the office at all, "not least because the proceedings were conducted in Swedish". Only the first two governors-general, Barclay de Tolly and Fabian Steinheil, presided at the Senate's sittings, and even then they conducted proceedings in French. Until 1822 the Governor-General's deputy was the senator longest in service; thereafter there were two vice-chairmen, one for the Economic Division and one for the Judicial Division, and in practice these came to direct the work of their divisions. The vice-chairman of the Economic Division was the country's unofficial prime minister; because he was simultaneously vice-chairman of the Senate as a whole, and because its proceedings were conducted in Swedish, he also presided in plenum until the end of the 1890s.