Inquisitorial system

An inquisitorial system is a legal system in which the court, or a part of the court, is actively involved in investigating the facts of the case, distinct from an adversarial system in which the role of the court is primarily that of an impartial referee between the plaintiff or prosecution and the defense. Inquisitorial systems are used primarily in countries with civil legal systems, such as France and Italy, or legal systems based on Islamic law such as Saudi Arabia, rather than in common law systems, and it is the prevalent system in Continental Europe, Latin America, African countries not formerly under British rule, East Asia apart from Hong Kong, Indochina, Thailand and Indonesia; most such countries also have some form of civil code as their main source of law, while common law countries including the United States may still use an inquisitorial approach for summary hearings of misdemeanors or infractions such as minor traffic violations. The distinction between an adversarial and an inquisitorial system is theoretically unrelated to the distinction between a civil-law and a common-law system, and some legal scholars prefer the term nonadversarial; the investigating function is often vested in the office of the public procurator, as in China, Japan and Germany. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/