There may be cases when the adversarial system is preferable. But when the accused knows that all the evidence will either corroborate her claims or at least not contradict them, and she knows the Minister's counsel has nothing on her but speculation and is just doing what she is paid to do and that is to prove her guilt, I think those are the cases in which the inquisitorial system is far superior to the adversarial one.
At the first hearing, the judge had ruled in her favour on the basis of a balance of probabilities due to her having proved many claims in the CBSA report to have been false and due to irregularities in the police report.
Are you saying an accused should never have the right to challenge an officer's claims?
Unfortunately, the judge ruled too soon. He skipped the witness and the accused's counsel's final testimony before ruling in the accused's favour.
This resulted in the Minister's counsel appealing the decision. At the appeal, the Minister's counsel presented some evidence (pictures) that she'd not shown at the original hearing, to show my friend was in the pictures. The pictures showed her nowhere to be seen in them. But my friend is aware that the Minister's counsel also had access to the names of police officers and other witnesses that she refused to share with my friend's counsel on request.
The problem with that is while the Minister's counsel could not prove my friend's guilt, she could prevent my friend from proving her innocence. This allowed her to drag the process outwhrn it could have been resolved very quickly. The problem though is that the Minister's counsel is actually paid to prove my friend's guilt, so her very job description goes against the goal of finding the truth.
From what I know of my friend's case, I get the impression that under an inquisitorial process, the ruling in her favour would have been far more ironclad and so significantly reduced the probability of an appeal.
