333 tatives of the absolutist regime, in the conduct of trials. Such tendencies were already present in Petrine procedural law toward the end of the seventeenth century. Before discussing the procedural reforms introduced during the reign of Peter the Great and the Swedish influence on them, however, it is necessary to explain some procedural concepts which have proven to be of importance in this connection. In procedural theory, two different types of judicial procedure are usually set in apposition to one another, that is, inquisitorial and adversary procedure, respectively. Inquisitorial procedure, an outgrowth of canon law primarily reserved for criminal cases, takes its name from the investigatory method, or inquisitio, by which cases are brought before the court and trials are conducted. Cases are prosecuted and tried ex officio by the court, whose aim is to find out (inquirere) the objective facts in order to be able to determine whether the accused can be held responsible for a punishable deed. The so-called legal weighing of evidence, which follows specific rules for how the judge is to weigh the evidence presented in a case, plays a major role in inquisitorial procedure. The typeof evidence assigned the greatest weight in the arithmetic scheme for weighing evidence that evolved in European legal doctrine and legislation from the Middle Ages onward was the confession.Because the confession was given special status as evidence, courts concentrated on wringing confessions from the accused, thus leading to the regular use of torture in inquisitorial procedure. The German historian of penal law Eberhard Schmidt has stated that the following criteria must be fulfilled if one is to speak of a use of inquisitorial procedure: 1) the so-called “official maxim,” which means that the adjudicating authority is required, ex officio, to direct the entire trial, and 2) the so-called “instructional maxim,” which states that the court itself is to investigate the material facts and arrive at an understanding of the objective truth. According to Schmidt, it is these two elements which constitute inquisitorial procedure.It should be emphasized in this context that the official maxim does not necessarily include the bringing of the case before the court, since this can instead be done by private initiative.^^^ Inquisitorial procedure offered extensive possibilities for the central state power to direct and control the administration of justice, and for Göran Inger, Das Geständnis in der schwedischen Prozessrechtsgeschichte (Lund, 1976), 39—42, 174—180. Eberhard Schmidt, EinfUhrung in die Geschichte dcr deutschen Strafrechtspflege (3rd ed., Göttingen, 1965), 86—87. John H. Langbein, Prosecuting Crime in the Renaissance: England, Germany, France (C.imbridge, Mass., 1974), 131. 119 129
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