Review Essay – The Criminal Judge as Modern Inquisitor

Abstract

The term “inquisition” has had bad press for a long time. Comparably bad is the reputation of the inquisitorial system, a judicial model that dominated German criminal law enforcement until the beginning of the 19th century. A distinctive feature of inquisitorial proceedings is the eminently strong position of the inquisitor who unifies the functions of an investigator, a prosecutor, and a judge in one and the same person. Although the codes of criminal procedure in the German states – which in 1871 formed the Kaiserreich (German Empire of 1871-1918)– included detailed rules of evidence to prevent arbitrary investigations, at the beginning of the 19th century it was a common opinion that these control mechanisms were practically insufficient and that the inquisitorial system ought to be replaced by a judicial model, which would guarantee more effective protection of the defendant against unjustified conviction.