Following the war waged between 1808 – 1809 Finland was separated from Sweden and became part of Russia as a Grand Duchy. Under Swedish rule a functioning provincial and local government had been created for Finland but the central national administration was located in Stockholm.

At the Diet which opened in March 1809 in Porvoo a committee was formed to prepare the guidelines for the Grand Duchy of Finland’s administrative council which the Tsar approved in August 1809.

The administrative council, since 1816 the Imperial Finnish Senate, was divided into a financial department and a judicial department of which the former served as the supreme civil administrative body in the Grand Duchy and the latter as the supreme court in the land.

The Governor General of Finland served as the official chairman of the Senate and its practical operation was overseen by the vice chairmen of the two departments.

The Senate was, by its nature, an imperial administrative body the members of which were responsible only to the Tsar and it had no parliamentary responsibility to the Diet or to parliament before the fall of imperial power in March 1917.

The financial department was divided into drafting committees the heads of which senate members who from 1858 began to be called senators. The number of committees varied from five to nine.

Some of the financial department’s senators were senators without portfolio. The judicial department had no committees. It took care of civil administration and public finances, the judicial department controlled judicial practice. The procurator served as the highest custodian of the law.

At the end of 1918 the name of the senate was changed by decree to the Council of State and the committees were renamed ministries. The senators became ministers and the vice chairman of the financial department became the Prime Minister.

The senate chancellery was renamed the chancellery of the Council of State and the procurator became the Chancellor of Justice. The senate judicial department was reformed as the supreme court and the supreme administrative court.