High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! An inquisitorial system is a legal system where the court or a part of the court is actively involved in investigating the facts of the case, as opposed to an adversarial system where the role of the court is primarily that of an impartial referee between the prosecution and the defense. Inquisitorial systems are used in some countries with civil legal systems as opposed to common law systems. Also countries using common law, including the United States, may use an inquisitorial system for summary hearings in the case of misdemeanors such as minor traffic violations. In fact, the distinction between an adversarial and inquisitorial system is theoretically unrelated to the distinction between a civil legal and common law system. Some legal scholars consider "inquisitorial" misleading, and prefer the word "nonadversarial". The function is often vested in the office of public procurator, as in many communist or ex-communist states such as Russia, China, and Ukraine, in addition to non-communist jurisdictions such as Japan and Scotland.