Adversarial and Inquisitorial Models of Civil Procedure

There is a widespread belief in this country that while England and the other common law countries have an adversarial system of civil procedure, continental countries use the inquisitorial system. The fact is, however, that the only kind of situation in which a truly inquisitorial procedure can be envisaged is exemplified when a policeman who, arriving at the scene of a fracas, opens the proceedings with the time honoured formula, ‘What's going on here?’ Short of that, there is nothing to which an inquisitorial judge can direct his inquiry unless and until a complaint of some kind is addressed to him. Even writers on French administrative law, whose procedure is claimed to be inquisitorial, find it difficult to avoid language that might be thought more appropriate to an adversary system. So for example, it is said that notice of the complaint must be given to all those whom the claimant indicates as his opponents.