macd21 said:

Ah….No. There is such a thing as a Conclave of Sanction (Mentioned in the DH corebook and in the Eisenhorn Novels).Technically, the ONLY charge that can be levelled against an Inquisitor is Heresy. This is essentially a Trial presided over by the "local" Lord Inquisitor and your fellow Inquisitors serve as both prosecutors. Defence and Jury. The "Sanctions" you can receive range from Castigation to Exile (Sometimes as a Rogue Trader) to Excommunication and Execution. You are right in that what is perceived as Heresy is heavily dependent on the viewpoints of your fellow Inquisitors!

Radwraith said:

Again - not officially. Things like conclaves and sanctions are local traditions, not rules. It's all about image and respect. A conclave is a way of attacking another Inquisitor's image, of harming his reputation.

macd21 said:

I am sure that there is some equivalent to the Conclave in every sector if not the same thing! After all, Eisenhorn's adventures did not take place in Calixis! There has to be a mechanism to deal with those (Comparatively few) Inquisitors that step behond the realm of Radical and into true heresy!

The only way to deal with a heretical inquisitor is another inquisitor. And the best inquisitor for this job serves the Ordo Hereticus.

The only "widespread" real institution the inquisition has are its Lord Inquisitors, elected by tradition, and among them there is the Inquisitor Lord Terran, but this rank has no real power of its own, its the inquisitons representative, he has to say what the high conclave orders him to say.

There is no real law an inquisitors is bound to. He can do whatever his build up authority allows him to do. His might is based upon his rank as inquisitor but an inquisitor is not automaticly an inquisitor. Look at Coteaz, his power base is a "whole" sector under arms and a large intelligence network of devoted agents. Look at Eisenhorn, his power comes from his personal cadre and presence "on the field". Look at Rex which dominates clonclaves of the Inquisiton and therefore inquisitors at their own, also he relies on the special forces of the inquisiton and his personal leadership on large scale confrontations.

All this can be summ up as their reputation. The more power they accumulate the stronger they are. Their rank of inquisitor only allows them to do so but it does not automaticly make them what you would imagine of an inquisitor. There are strong and weak ones and technicaly every inquisitor can declare another one exomunicate traitoris. But it depends on his reputation wether other inquisitors take this sirious and on the reputation of the victim wether he can be defeatet by the power of the accusant. This is the fragile balance of power I spoke of, this is the secret work of the Ordo Hereticus which hunts down the hereticals but also save the inquisiton itself so it cant loose itself.

The Inquisition saves the empire, but who saves the inquisition?

The Ordo Malleus and Xenos are recognised for their large scale actions against the threats of the empire, but the Ordo Hereticus battles the greatest of them all, the enemy within who already has brought the empire down to one knee. There is nothing in real history you can compare to that. Imagine an individual, and incarnation of your worst nightmares, with the power to "sign the death warrant of an entire world and consign a billion souls to Oblivion.", an individual that is no longer bound to the moral of a mortal but the direct service of a god, an individual whose power is only limited to his imagination, who has the right and authority to unleash war upon his enemys and to crush everyone in his way, who does not know innocence because there is none. Imagine a Man with such great power that one word of him can cause actions of such devastation that the simple thought of them would render someone lesser utter insane. This is the theory of an inquisitor, in the "reality" the common inquisitor is way less dangerrous, but the Lord Inquisitors I discribed are still out there, watching every single step of you.

There is a whole section about 'Denunciations' being declared against Inquisitors in the Radical's Handbook.

Yes and there a books where an inquisitor shot another on sight.

The rules of denuntiation are only important if you are weaker than those who defend this rules and set them up.

And yes, as an Inquisitor you always follow the rules of stronger inquisitors unless you have your own independence and power base.

The rules exist because there are some peple who say they are rules and who can punish you if you dont obey them. The meaning of such rules is to keep balance, but tho whose favor? Well, atleast for the Lord Inquisitor… his power base.

I think it's been rather well discussed by now, but I'll weigh in with my opinion, if only that.

My answer to the titular question is an unequivocal no. The Inquisition bears little resemblance to any modern intelligence organisation; their members have essentially unlimited power, have no code of conduct or set of governing laws and no external oversight. They can topple regimes and install ones that suit their purposes almost at will and order the destruction of entire worlds, and are policed by solely by their own when they do so.

Basically, they make real world spooks look like high-minded guardians of peace and justice, lol.

Everything FieserMoep said is pretty much spot on.

Except its the Ordo Malleus that makes a habit of policing the Inquisitions ranks. Probably because it was around before the Ordo Hereticus by about 5000 years, and also probably because that rogue Inquisitors and Acolytes are not normal heretics, but the ones most likely to be wielding tainted warp energies, and consorting with the kind of dark powers that the Malleus specializes with.

Also the simple fact that it's absolutely retarded for anyone to believe that an Ordo will only look for problems of their own specialty to deal with (demons, aliens, or heretics), and just pass a note on to their colleague, who will surely get around to it properly and in time, for anything outside. Or even more ludicrously, just ignore it.

Blood Pact said:

The Ordo are loose alliances of like-minded Inquisitors, who work together due to shared interests. If someone is in the Ordo Xenos it's because he is more interested in hunting aliens than heretics, if he's in the Ordo Malleus it's because he fears (or is intrigued by) the forces of the warp. By definition this means that a member of an Ordo is going to focus his attention on his area of expertise - otherwise he would be a member of another Ordos (or none at all). Whether he will investigate, pass on or ignore other threats depends on the Inquisitor in question and how he views that threat. A member of the Ordo Xenos might ignore a heretical cult on Scintilla because he doesn't think it is important, instead focusing on the smuggling of xenos artifacts. Alternatively he might send some acolytes or an Interrogator to investigate, or just tell an ally in the Ordo Hereticus about it. Or he might decide to use them, providing them with funds and support, helping them to grow to a decent size, placing one of his acolytes into a position of power within the cult - all so that he can use them to ferret out his true prey, the agents of the Cold Trade. He'll use the cult to purchase alien weapons, allowing him to learn more about the black market. He might never consider the possibility that the cult could becomes a threat to the Imperium, seeing them as an insignificant problem compared to his own obsession.

Other Inquisitors, while members of one Ordo, might have an interest in all threats, being only slightly more focused on one. Such an Inquisitor would probably just crush the cult and move on to the next problem.

bogi_khaosa said:

What about the East German Stazi? 

That said, my group is more like the Monty Python Inquisition…..

Its Stasi for Staatssicherheit, beside their methods and some personel they had nothing in common with Nazis. ;)

But even the Stasi is quite harmless in comparsion. Yes, they might know everything about you, might have infiltrated your circle of friends and but you into prison if you act against the government (or even let you disappear which was quite uncommon). They might even shoot you but thats pretty much all they did "beside" spreading some fear and terror. But even the Stasi had some morals (I know, hard to believe) and they had some strict ranks.

The methods of the stasi would be an example of how an Inquisitor might work while he tries to infiltrate for example the nobility of a hive. The first step is to find some dirty secrets about you to blackmail you (or simply forces you to by his power) to spy on your friends/family. After you brough him some evidence he forces those you have betrayed to do the same and so on… quite a nice snowball-effect. And if someone does not do what he want him to do, let him disapear, let him be a warning to the others. Though the Stasi was feared openly an Inquisitor would perhaps be some more subtle.