In an adversarial system, the court plays the role of a referee between prosecution and defense (Center for Civic Education, 2018). The entire process tends to be a contest between the two parties. In an inquisitorial system, the court is active in proofing facts via taking investigations of a case. The terms adversarial and inquisitorial are derived from procedures that are used in resolving issues that arise to be determined through litigation under the civil and criminal laws of the country (Gonzlez Ramrez, 2021). The two forms of legal traditions govern the adjudication and investigation of nature worldwide.

The inquisitorial system is linked with the civil law legal systems and has been in existence for centuries. It is categorized via extensive pretrial interrogations and investigations to avoid committing an innocent individual to trial. The Inquisitorial system can be defined as an official review of ascertaining truth, while the adversarial system utilizes a competitive process between the defense and the prosecution in determining the facts.

Additionally, the judge who oversees the prosecution process is granted more power by the inquisitorial system, while in the adversarial system, the judge serves mostly as an arbiter between prosecution and defense claims (Yong, 2024). Finally, in the inquisitorial trial conduct lies in the hands of the court. The judge overseeing the trial determines who would be the witness and how they would be heard. On the other hand, In the adversarial system, all parties are allowed to determine the witness and what kind of evidence to give. The court oversees the process following the type of evidence provided.

The inquisitorial system is better than the civil code system. Similarly, the adversarial approach is better for the common law system (Gonzlez Ramrez, 2021). Both systems tend to have variations throughout the world since various countries have modified their criminal justice procedure in separate ways over the years. This balances the interests of the State to resolve and apprehend offenders with the interest of individual citizens who might be caught in the legal system.