INQUISITORIAL SYSTEM
A method of legal practice in which the judge endeavors to discover facts while simultaneously representing the interests of the state in a trial.
The inquisitorial system can be defined by comparison with the adversarial, or accusatorial, system used in the United States and Great Britain. In the ADVERSARY SYSTEM,two or more opposing parties gather evidence and present the evidence, and their arguments, to a judge or jury. The judge or jury knows nothing of the litigation until the parties present their cases to the decision maker. The defendant in a criminal
trial is not required to testify.
In the inquisitorial system, the presiding
judge is not a passive recipient of information.
Rather, the presiding judge is primarily respon-
sible for supervising the gathering of the evi-
dence necessary to resolve the case. He or she
actively steers the search for evidence and ques-
tions the witnesses, including the respondent or
defendant. Attorneys play a more passive role,
suggesting routes of inquiry for the presiding
judge and following the judge’s questioning with
questioning of their own. Attorney questioning
is often brief because the judge tries to ask all
relevant questions.
The goal of both the adversarial system and
the inquisitorial system is to find the truth. But
the adversarial system seeks the truth by pitting
the parties against each other in the hope that
competition will reveal it, whereas the inquisito-
rial system seeks the truth by questioning those
most familiar with the events in dispute. The
adversarial system places a premium on the indi-
vidual rights of the accused, whereas the inquisi-
torial system places the rights of the accused
secondary to the search for truth.
The inquisitorial system was first developed
by the Catholic Church during the medieval
period. The ecclesiastical courts in thirteenth-
century England adopted the method of adjudi-
cation by requiring witnesses and defendants to
take an inquisitorial oath administered by the
judge, who then questioned the witnesses. In an
inquisitorial oath, the witness swore to truth-
fully answer all questions asked of him or her.
The system flourished in England into the six-
teenth century, when it became infamous for its
use in the Court of the STAR CHAMBER, a court
reserved for complex, contested cases. Under the
reign of King Henry VIII, the power of the Star
Chamber was expanded, and the court used tor-
ture to compel the taking of the inquisitorial
oath. The Star Chamber was eventually elimi-
nated as repugnant to basic liberty, and England
gradually moved toward an adversarial system.
After the French Revolution, a more refined
version of the inquisitorial system developed in
France and Germany. From there it spread to the
