Criminology

The term adversarial is derived from the United Kingdom legal system. The criminal judicial system in the United States is also based on the Adversarial system. In adversarial systems the decision reached by the jury or the judge is based how the parties involved in the case present their argument in the court of law. It is therefore not the role of the judge or the jury in such system to gather evidence on the case presented before them. Nations which apply this kind of system were colonized by the British, for instance Australia, New Zealand, India, Canada, Pakistan, South Africa and Malaysia. One of the major features of this kind of system is that the legal procedures used are derived from the judges as compared to the Islamic laws that are derived from religious aspects based on Quaran (Bui, 2004).

According to Bui (2004), inquisitorial system was introduced in early 19th century and was adopted mainly by the European countries. Under this system, the judge interprets the law by applying the relevant codes depending on the case being handled. In other words, they are laws that are highly dependant on the judicial decision. In this form of law, the judges are supreme and their decisions are binding and has significant influence, for instance in France, the Cour de cassation is the final court of appeal.

Origin of Islamic, Inquisitorial and Adversary laws
Over the years, the criminal justice system has been one aspect of the human race that has changed constantly. Despite this, many of the laws applied in different societies of the world today are based on Christian or Islamic beliefs and ideologies. Although in majority of the world society, the state and the religion have since been separated, it is evident that almost all the laws applied in the criminal justice are based on the bible or the Quran. However, some in some countries especially the Islamic republics in the Middle East, religion and state are not separated where these countries apply the Islamic law as stipulated in the Quran. The Islamic Law stem from the Shariah and the Sunnah. The Shari is the law defined by God, or Allah, and told directly to Gods prophet on Earth, Muhammad (Esposito, 1992).

According to Nasheri (2002), Sunnah deals with the issues not addressed in the Quran, yet is still in the word of the Prophet. In a few Islamic countries, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Sudan, it is proclaimed as the basis for all law, including the harsh Islamic criminal law. The adversarial systems are common in countries such as the United Kingdom and other British colonies that base their justice systems on the common law.  

Features of criminal justice systems
In analyzing the key aspects in each of the legal system, it is in order to consider religion, life, intellect and property in regard to each system. It is worth noting that, not all judicial systems operates the same. Islamic laws as discussed are basically derived from religious belief system of Muslims, the major theoretical assumption on this kind of laws is that the law must protect the religion, life of the people and the property of an individual. According to Moussalli (1999), Islamic laws were made in order to protect and cultivate religious consciousness and to uphold the moral standards of the Muslim community.

Another important aspect of Islamic criminal justice system is that the religion and the state are not separated. This lack of separation results into an Islamic republic. The Islamic beliefs and ideology guides every aspect of governance as well as the criminal justice systems. All matters touching on the society, whether private or public are controlled by the religion through the state. However, there some variations in the application of Islamic law in different countries depending on how the law is interpreted in the country. In some Islamic republics, civil laws that accommodate other religions have been introduced giving room for other criminal justice systems in Islamic societies. However, adversarial system is far much different with the Islamic laws in its concepts, practice and jurisdiction.

Adversary laws are not made by religious leaders like the Islamic laws but are made and modified by the judges that are either appointed by the head of state or hired by the appointing authority in any given state more so the countries that were colonized by Britain since adversary laws were directly adopted from the UK legal system. Since adversary laws are not based on religious beliefs, it calls for rationality and evaluation before the judgment is placed on any one. The judges are expected to be more rational in making decisions since some of the decisions that are not considered valid can be disregarded by the higher court. The decision must therefore be binding and reasonable to avoid cancellation (Esposito, 1992).

 According to Walker (2003), inquisitorial systems use mostly common laws which are consistently changing, for instance the statute laws that have intruded the common law. The jury or the judge in an inquisitorial criminal justice system takes an active role in gathering information that can be used as evidence against the accused. It is the responsibility of the presiding judge or jury to use the court mechanisms to gather information and evidences used in the resolution of the case. This is as opposed to the adversarial justice system where the ruling is based on how the parties or their attorneys present the case before the court. However, in both systems the judge or the jury plays an important role of a neutral expert to protect the parties involved from intimidation by the attorneys.

The basic difference between the adversarial and inquisitorial criminal justice systems is the basis under which the judge or the jury gives the ruling. In adversarial systems, the final court decision is based on how the two opposing parties personally or through their attorneys present their case. Both opposing parties are free to present their case in the most appropriate way according to them but under the supervision of a neutral expert who is the presiding judge or jury. The ruling of the court is therefore influenced by the competence of the attorneys representing the opposing parties. The major role of the judge or the jury in adversarial system is to listen carefully to the opposition between the parties and ensure there fair play in the case presentation. On the other hand, in inquisitorial systems the court ruling is based on the evidence gathered by the court on the case. The role of the judge or the jury is not only to provide a neutral expert in the proceedings but also to take part in collecting evidence and cross-examination of witnesses (Pepper, 2005).  

All the three criminal justice systems however have some similarities. The main aim of the systems is to find the truth in the case presented before the court from which the judgments are based on. The adversarial system gather the truth based on how the two parties present their cases while in inquisitorial system the court seeks evident and witness from a third party where applicable. Even though Islamic laws are based upon the religious doctrines, the fundamental principle behind the laws stipulated is to determine the truth in any matter placed before the judges in Islamic court. In most cases, the judges in Islamic courts use references in the Quaran to interpret and to come up with a decision or judgment (Walker, 2003).

All the three systems have a well defined procedure in handling cases, with qualified judges that have proper legal background. For instance, in the United States under the adversary system, the major feature of the United States criminal justice system is the jury system that was designed such that a decision of whether a person is guilty or innocent cannot fall only into one individuals hand but a group of people. This is the single most important characteristic of the American justice systems that makes it outstanding and strong. For a group of judges or the jury presiding over a case to unanimously come up with a ruling, they should all be convinced that the accused is guilty or not guilty behold any reasonable doubts.

 Under the Islamic laws, the legal experts are well equipped with biblical teachings in Quaran before the judgment is passed. The judicial system of the Islamic court do not have judges, this is a myth as compared to the two systems inquisitorial and adversary systems. Many people in the western world have a misconception that the Islamic justice system does not have a judge. This misconception is based on lack of information because the Islamic law has a legal secretary called the Qazi who serves the role of a judge in the Islamic justice systems. As stated earlier, the interpretation of the Islamic law differ from one country to another and so is the justice system. For example, in Saudi Arabia, there are two court systems, one based on the traditional Islamic law and the other dealing with modern crimes such as traffic and commercial crimes (Pepper, 2005)

Conclusion
There are three major criminal justice systems that exist in different parts of the world. The systems are the Islamic, adversarial and the inquisitorial justice systems. It is important to note that all the three systems of law are based on religious ideologies. However, Islamic systems are exclusively based on the teachings of Islam and are mainly practiced in Islamic society. The adversarial system is common in British and it colonies while the inquisitorial system is practiced in other European countries. The main difference between the three systems is how the court proceedings are carried out. The major similarity is that all the systems seek to find the truth in the case thought using different means.