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Ex officio is a Latin phrase that literally means from office or by virtue of one's office. Be careful not to confuse it with sua sponte, on one's own motion. For example, "The judge dismissed the case sua sponte and not on motion of one of the parties."
motion
More information on the words discussed in the video, including sound files, examples of usage, common mistakes and encyclopaedic information, can be found in TransLegal's Legal English Dictionary.
Hello. I'm Robin with TransLegal's Lesson of the Week.
Today we're going to talk about ex officio which is a Latin phrase that literally means from office or by virtue of one's office.
This refers to powers that an officer may exercise which are not specifically given to that person but are implied in that office. We talk about ex officio judges or judges who serve in a particular capacity, for instance, on some sort of board or commission because the law requires a certain judge to serve and not because he or she was specifically selected for that position.
We also talk about ex officio services which are services that are deemed to be included in a certain office and that the officer is obligated to perform.
We hear this phrase in the sentence: The treasurer shall serve on the Board as a non-voting ex officio member of the Board; or The Attorney General enjoys ex officio membership on the Sentencing Commission; or even Justice Roberts is Chancellor of the Smithsonian Institution, one of his ex officio jobs as Chief Justice.
In some countries, for example Sweden, ex officio is used to mean on one's own motion. However, this is not the meaning of this Latin phrase when used in English. The Latin phrase that is used to express that concept in English is sua sponte. So, for instance, we would say the judge dismissed the case sua sponte and not on motion of one of the parties.
So I hope that when you're speaking English you will not confuse these two phrases.
That's all for today. Thank you for listening. I hope this was useful to you. Please remember leave all comments in the box below. We enjoy your comments. Thank you.
Very interesting to learn the different usage of the same latin phrase.
In Bosnian law, we use ex officio to express the actions of an officer which he is obliged to undertake by the force of law.
So a prosecutor, in criminal law, always acts ex officio and not by his own motion.
Thank you very much!
I am so glad that you found this lesson to be useful.