Introduction to criminal law and criminal justice

INTRODUCTION TO
CRIMINAL LAW AND
CRIMINAL JUSTICE

A legal system of the country is one of the most fundamental organ of the development and
the management of the social order of a country or a region. There are two different systems
that are used in the conduct of trials that are the Adversarial and Inquisitorial systems. While
the adversarial system is prevalent in the jurisdictions of the common law such as that of
England, the Inquisitorial system is being used in the areas of mainland Europe. In addition,
while the former system relies on the parties for the hearings, the jury presides over the
proceedings in the latter. The work would shed light on the advantages and the disadvantages
of the adversarial justice system, followed by an overall conclusion on the discussion.
Most of the developed countries such as that of the UK, USA and Australia have employed
the adversarial system of the legal proceedings. It refers to a system where each of the parties
to the proceedings has an opportunity to represent the facts and evidences in support of their
arguments and the decision is served by the courts as to which party is close to the standard
of serving their proofs to their version of the situation (Shchepetova, 2013). Thus, the
decision is served only on the basis of the evidences and the cases that are heard are the ones
that reach the court in the event of the disputes. In contrast to this, the Inquisitorial systems is
established mostly in the counties whose legal system is based on the Roman or the Civil
Law. Under this system, the judge is entrusted with the responsibility of investigation of the
various aspects of the case in question, examination of the witnesses and the finding the truth.
Thus, while the latter involves more active role of the judge, the former provides the control
to the parties to the disputes (Perkins, 2015). The following segment is descriptive of the pros
and cons of the adversarial system.
One of the prime advantages of the adversarial system of the justice is that it leads to the
placement of a suitable distance between the person who is entrusted with the responsibility
to serve the decision and the conduct of the investigations (Sevier, 2014). Thus, the parties to
the case are better able to present the facts of the case, as the same are closer to the case
instead of the judges who are a complete third party to the case. The judge to the case has no
information about the facts of the case, until the same has been presented in the form of the
evidences and witnesses to the case. In contrast to this, in Inquisitorial systems the power of
the judges is not limited to the issues that are presented. The judges preside over the trial
proceedings and are free to enquire beyond what is presented in the inquisitorial system.
Thus, a judge can be stated as a impartial party in the adversarial system.