In law, sua sponte (Latin: "of his, her, its or their own accord") or suo motu/suo moto ("on its own motion")[1] describes an act of authority taken without formal prompting from another party.
[2] The term is usually applied to actions by a judge taken without a prior motion or request from the parties.
(Third parties describing such actions would still refer to them as being taken by the court as a whole and therefore as sua sponte.)
[3] One situation in which a party might encourage a judge to move sua sponte occurs when that party is preserving a special appearance (usually to challenge jurisdiction), and therefore cannot make motions on its behalf without making a general appearance.
Judges commonly act sua sponte when they determine that the court does not have subject-matter jurisdiction[4] or that the case should be moved to another judge because of a conflict of interest,[5] even if all parties disagree.