JUDICIAL INQUISITION. - An investigation that must be carried out before the citation of the accused, when the crime is neither notorious nor entirely certain; it can be conducted ex officio by the Ordinary or following a denunciation by the promoter of justice. The purpose toward which the investigation tends is to avoid as far as possible criminal proceedings, when there are no valid reasons and arguments for holding that a crime actually exists and that a specific person is guilty.
The investigation can be: 1) general: that of the Ordinary concerning the observance of the laws by his subjects; 2) special: when it is carried out by a judge delegated for each individual denunciation. Judicial is the investigation that must precede the criminal trial; extrajudicial is that which precedes the imposition of penal remedies. The inquisitor is bound by the same obligations as the judge, and cannot be the judge in the trial that may eventually follow the investigation. The powers of the inquisitor are regulated by the Ordinary, although in the exercise of his functions he enjoys considerable freedom of action. Once the judicial investigation is completed, if the denunciation appears unfounded, the documents are placed in the secret archive; if there are only indications insufficient to initiate action, the suspect will be placed under surveillance and may also be interrogated; if, on the other hand, there are sufficient grounds to proceed with the criminal trial, the presumed accused will first be cited and interrogated, then proceedings will continue up to the correptio delinquenti and the instructio processus criminalis.
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Giorgio Franco