Inlaw,sua sponte (Latin: "of his, her, its, or their own accord") orsuo motu/suo moto ("on its own motion")^[1] describes an act of authority taken without formal prompting by anotherparty.^[2] The term is usually applied to actions taken by ajudge without a priormotion or request from the parties. The formnostra sponte ("of our own accord") is sometimes used when the action is taken by a multi-member court, such as anappellate court, rather than by a single judge. (Third parties describing such actions would still refer to them as being taken by the court as a whole and therefore assua sponte.) While usually applied to actions of a court, the term may reasonably be applied to actions by government agencies and individuals acting in their official capacities.^[3]

One situation in which a party might encourage a judge to movesua sponte occurs when that party is preserving aspecial appearance (usually to challengejurisdiction) and therefore cannot make motions on its behalf without making ageneral appearance. Judges commonly actsua sponte when they determine that the court does not havesubject-matter jurisdiction^[4] or that the case should be moved to another judge because of aconflict of interest,^[5] even if all parties disagree.

• InCarlisle v. United States, 517 U.S. 416 (1996), theSupreme Court of the United States ruled that adistrict court could not movesua sponte to grant ajudgment ofacquittal (notwithstanding the verdict) to remedy the late filing of the equivalent motion.^[6]
• InTrest v. Cain, 522 U.S. 87 (1997), 94 F.3d 1005, theUnited States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit movedsua sponte to reject ahabeas corpus claim because ofprocedural default, citing an obligation to do so. The Supreme Court ruled that this was not obligatory but declined to rule whether it was permitted.^[7]
• Since 2009, theSupreme Court of Pakistan has frequently taken upsuo motu cases againstgovernment authorities involving violence,corruption, imposition ofprice ceilings on variouscommodities, and so on.^{[8][9][10][11][12]} The extent to which the court should exercise this authority is a matter ofpolitical debate.^[13]

• TheUnited States Army Rangers'75th Ranger Regiment's motto isSua Sponte, referring to the Rangers' ability to accomplish tasks with little to no prompting and to recognize that a Ranger volunteers three times: for the U.S. Army, Airborne School, and service in the 75th Ranger Regiment.^[14]

• Motu proprio

• Latin legal terminology

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata