Adversarial Vs Inquisitorial System

Gerald N. Rosenberg discusses the three views on the power of courts to cause social change, as well as the Miranda decision, in his popular and provoking book, The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change? Rosenberg examines the underlying beliefs and theories for each of the views, as well as the problems one can encounter with both the constrained and dynamic views of the courts. It is from these problems that Rosenberg creates the Condition Dependent view of court power. To understand Rosenberg’s argument about the power of courts to cause change, it is important to understand the two other models of court power which Rosenberg synthesizes.

Since the conflict model asserts that the criminal justice system’s purpose is to maintain economic and political control by the dominant class, it must be true that the dominant class has access to the system and even the laws that are applied to defendants by judges and by the process of civil procedure. The model informs us, that every decisive aspect of the criminal justice could potentially be controlled by a powerful person or entity. Even the jury selection process is informed by conflict model. In jury selection, the party with the most educated, savvy, and well-connected attorney – usually the costliest – can often control the composition of a jury according to race, gender, and political sway. The conflict model represents the system

The criminal justice system used today is to follow principles that protect and establish equality for all and while the United States criminal justice system may strive to follow these right of the people, but unfortunately, this is where the system falls short of fundamental American principles. Repeatedly the criminal justice system does the adverse of what it’s supposed to do. It does not protect the many liberties the people should have. Some may argue that the criminal justice system is indeed fair for

The Australian justice system implements the adversarial system in which opposing parties present their case before an unbiased decision maker, to ensure procedural fairness and the principles of natural justice are upheld.The system has been structured this way to ensure justice is served for the victim, offender and the broader community. The nature of justice is that it is equal to all, fair from bias and is accessible. In the case on R v Rolfe and R v Weston (2017) the two offenders; Timothy Rolfe and John Weston, members of the Rebels Outlaw Motorcycle Club were sentenced at the NSW Supreme Court on a joint criminal enterprise for the murder of 29-year-old Laurence Starling. The killing was motivated by revenge for an unpaid extortion debt of $200,000 between the deceased’s business partner Mr Fields and a high-ranking member of the ‘’Rebels’’ who sent his subordinates to seize Mr Field’s assets as compensation. The complex circumstances of the crime were problematic for the justice system because particular methods had to be implemented in the process of achieving justice however the justice system was relatively effective in reaching a just outcome for majority of the stakeholders due to its resource efficiency, responsiveness, accessibility, standards of fairness, protection of individual rights and meeting society’s needs.

To be sure, modern laws are made to express the general will, a will that aims at the common good. This means that laws in most cases intend to protect every social member’s rights under the principle of justice and fairness. For telling examples one need to look no further than American judicial system. The access to the two courts systems, one federal court and one state court, provides citizens with the greatest potential to have their legal problems

To provide a balance in specific nations and considerations of cross cutting, the issues must go beyond national boundaries. The traditional contrast of adversarial versus legal systems will be to determine what impacted each system that may have on preventing wrongful convictions and whether or not the traditional difference remains viable or needs revision. The number of public policies intended to reduce the number of these convictions and compensate more fairly and just to those who are the victims of these mistrials.

HOW DOES THE ADVERSARY LEGAL SYSTEM ENSURE RULE OF LAW, AND HOW DOES THIS DIFFER FROM MODERN MEDIA MISCONCEPTIONS?

Power plays a key role in our American Justice System. The practice of law in the United States is,in my opinion, set up in a way to benefit those who have power. Power in law is defined by status in society, wealth, and/or overall legal experience. The people who have this power can influence or even directly create the laws that the entire society must abide by or face consequences at the hands of the state. Wealth can help to pay for the expensive process that is usually involved in legal proceedings. Power gives these members of the society a clear advantage in the court of law, while heavily incarnating members of the lower class. The legal system is made in a way to maintain the current state of power and to benefit and increase the wealth of those in power. True Justice, in this sense, is what is good for those who have and bad for those who have not.

In reviewing the court system of the United States there is a definite hierarchy between the trial courts, appellate courts and the supreme courts of both the state and federal levels. However, the actions of the court systems move at such a slow and hindered pace because of the bureaucracy of motions and objections among many others. The following is a review of the type of court system the United States has and why. Along with judges sentencing goals and philosophy; and sentencing innovations.

The United States legal system uses the adversarial process and lawyers are needed to this process. In order to obtain solid evidence and legal arguments to face the court, lawyers are held responsible to represent their client’s accordingly to the evidence presented. Parties are responsible for obtaining and introducing evidence to the court. The adversarial system is characterized by law of evidence. Strick rules have been develop over time with the attention to the admissibility and excluding of evidence have developed.

The objective of an adversarial system and an inquisitorial system is similar, but the path to justice is very different. The terms adversarial and inquisitorial are used to describe types of justice systems in which represent common law and civil law respectively. The adversarial system is a legal system where two parties’ positions are represented before an unbiased judge or a jury who attempt to determine the truth behind the case. In an inquisitorial system, a judge contributes to the preparation of evidence along with how the different parties are to present their case at the trial. The judge plays the role of finding the truth and all the evidence that either proves the innocence or guilt of the accused. The adversarial system is clearly the more impartial and accurate way to determine the truth within a case.

The legitimacy of the criminal justice system is based largely upon both its effectiveness and its fairness. Its effectiveness is judged by its ability to investigate and detect crime, identify offenders and mete out the appropriate sanctions to those who have been convicted of offences. Its fairness is judged by its thoroughness and the efforts it makes to redress the resource imbalance between the accused and the state at the investigatory, pre-trial, trial and appellate stages. The system does this by providing evidentiary protection and effective legal representation at all points.

In the discussion which follows, the function served by ‘evidence’ within the adversarial system will be considered. The central importance of relevance to the admissibility of evidence will be linked to the purpose served by the tribunal of fact. The range of factors which impact on the criminal justice system will act as a basis to consider the justification for the exclusion of certain evidential material. Developments in attitudes as a result of recent legislation will lead the discussion to the conclusion that the above statement is not sustainable

However, the polarity of the two models is not absolute. Although it would be possible to construct models that exist in an institutional vacuum, it would not serve our purposes to do so. We are postulating, not a criminal process that operates in any kind of society at all, but rather one that operates within the framework of contemporary American society. This leaves plenty of room for polarization, but it does require the observance of some limits. A model of the criminal process that left out of account relatively stable and enduring features of the American legal system would not have much relevance to our central inquiry. For convenience, these elements of stability and continuity can be roughly equated with minimal agreed limits expressed in the Constitution of the United States and, more importantly, with unarticulated assumptions that can be perceived to underlie those limits. Of course, it is true that the Constitution is constantly appealed to by proponents and opponents of many measures that affect the criminal process. And only the naive would deny that there are few conclusive positions that can be reached by appeal to the Constitution. Yet there are assumptions about the criminal process that are widely shared and that may be viewed as common ground for the operation of any model of the criminal process. Our first task is to clarify these assumptions.

The criminal justice system of the United States is based on a system fragmentation and operation. This system consists of overlapping powers between the state and federal laws that creates a conflict with regards to criminal justice. Consequently, this generates a dysfunctional and inefficient system that a times fails to produce credibility in criminal justice. The rationale behind this is that there is no clear interpretation concerning where federal law ends and where state law begins.