15 May 1804

Evidence

Forthcomingness

Ch. Investigatorial

In French procedure /jurisprudence//practice/, though inquisitorial procedure, as above described, procedure d'office (as it is called) is not without example, it by no means makes an equal figure - occupies in the books a space - equal to that which is occupied by the same branch in the German books. The reason may perhaps, /case perhaps may/ be, that in German jurisprudence /Germany/ the office a public prosecutor, distinct from the Judge is not so constant an ingredient in the composition of the judicial establishment as in France.

In English law, this mode of procedure is not less familiarly /[...?]/ known than in French or even that in German law. There is however this difference /one very observable difference/. In English law, except in here and there a case seldom exemplified in practice, the inquisitorial mode of proceeding is confined to the preparatory stages of procedure: at the ultimate hearing - the trial - an accusor presents himself a prosecutor distinct from the Judge: nor is the Judge who presides at the ultimate hearing the same as he by whom the procedure has been conducted in its preparatory stages.

In the case of summary procedure before a single justice of the peace, the same Judge by whom the case is commenced conducts it, it is true, to the end: but then in these cases, the procedure is not in any stage of it, of the inquisitorial kind as above described: the function of accusor is from beginning to end carried on throughout by a party, the informer: an individual who finds his renumeration in an inducement in the receipt of the penalty (a pecuniary one) allotted /[...?]/ to him in that view.