consultancy arrangements, the core ideas of worker participation and industrial
democracy may no longer have anything to which they can be applied.
Initiative
The initiative is a method whereby a group of citizens can put a legislative
proposal before the electorate directly for determination in areferendum.
The proposal may be to enact a new law, to repeal an existing law or to amend a
constitution. It became popular in the USA during the late 19th century when
criticisms were voiced of the party machines in the USA, and is also important
in Switzerland. The initiative thus appeared a way of by-passing the parties
which controlled the legislatures of the states, and proved successful as a
method of obtaining progressive reforms. About one-third of the US states
retain the procedure, but it can not be applied to federal legislation as Article I
of the US Constitution prevents Congress from delegating its legislative
powers. California, which has become the leader in the use of citizen
initiatives, has had unhappy experience, on matters like taxes and the regula-
tion of motor insurance, when the electorate has imposed a law that has been
economically disastrous to implement.
Inquisitorial System
The inquisitorial system ofcriminal lawis common everywhere in thecivil
lawworld. It describes the mode of trial in criminal cases where the court,
either a single judge or a bench of judges and assessors, seeks directly to
ascertain the truth of the charges brought. The court will interrogate witnesses,
call for evidence, perhaps require the counsel for prosecution and defence to
answer certain points or make certain arguments, and will not be satisfied until
it believes it has itself found out all that can be found out about the case. In
contrast, the mode of criminal trial in thecommon lawsystems is known as
the accusatorial system. Here the jury has the job only of deciding between the
cases put forward by the prosecution and the defence, on the terms they choose
to present. The judge has only the duty of seeing a fair trial, of ensuring that the
rules of evidence are obeyed, and summing up impartially to the jury. Thus in
the latter case no pretence is made that the whole intricate truth will be found
out, but only that the prosecution will do its best to convict, and the defence to
acquit, and that the better arguments will prevail. For this reason, in an attempt
to ensure fairness, it is necessary for the prosecution in the accusatory system to
have very powerful cases to acquire a conviction, whereas this is not necessary
in the inquisitorial system. Consequently there has grown up a misleading
simplification that a defendant is ‘innocent until proved guilty’ under common
law (which is, roughly, true), and ‘guilty until proved innocent’ (which is not
Initiative