00:00The inquisitorial procedure is the judicial procedure where control of the trial is entrusted to the judge who plays a role
00:05active.
00:05In addition to the evidence presented by the parties, the judge may seek evidence himself.
00:10in order to form one's own opinion.
00:12The inquisitorial procedure is therefore opposed to the accusatorial procedure, used in civil matters and, in Anglo-Saxon countries,
00:19in criminal law,
00:19where the role of judges is limited only to that of impartial arbitrator between the parties.
00:23The investigating judge is often considered the contemporary embodiment of the inquisitorial procedure because of his ability
00:29to combine, single-handedly, the functions of investigation and judgment.
00:33In the context of a criminal hearing, the inquisitorial nature of a procedure is also noticeable when one, or
00:38several, magistrates comprising the trial court
00:41they appropriate the investigation file compiled by the investigating judge or the public prosecutor to direct it themselves
00:46the debates based on a pre-established report and directly questioning the person being prosecuted,
00:50thus considerably reducing the scope for intervention by the parties.
00:54A symbol of the Church and, subsequently, of royal absolutism, the inquisitorial procedure was, according to some observers,
01:01more often used by authoritarian regimes and/or those with weak respect for the principle of separation of powers.
01:06However, it is still in force in some democratic countries, particularly in Western Europe, where it finds its
01:12Origins: France, Spain, Belgium.
01:14However, there are reform plans aimed at abandoning it and, consequently, at abolishing the investigating judge.
01:21regularly mentioned.
01:22In Latin America, the inquisitorial procedure inherited from Spanish colonization remained quite widely in force until the end
01:28of the 20th century.
01:30However, it was gradually abandoned from 1991 onwards in favour of the adversarial procedure.
01:35Subtitling by Radio-Canada
